Original post: http://www.techfilled.com/ptcl-customer-information-system-security-flaw.html

Local Link for Customer Information: http://pakbee.com/ptcl.htm

PTCL has silently made a change in their broadband policy.

According to old policy, customers had to pay rent of PTCL broadband modem every month with DSL charges and when customer wanted to discontinue PTCL DSL service he had to return PTCL modem to PTCL – if he is not 12 months old customer.

Meaning that after 12 installments, modem belonged to customer – and PTCL couldn’t demand for modem if DSL services were discontinued after 12 months.

But now with new PTCL broadband policy, all new and old customers must have to return back DSL modems at the time when they want to discontinue their DSL service, even if they have completed 12 months or more.

So now modem charges are considered as monthly rental for modem and not the monthly installment.

This policy is valid for old customers too – meaning that if a customer has paid modem installments, even then he will have to return the modem in case of disconnection.

On other side, on new connections – you will have to get PTCL’s modem even if you have your own modem/router with you, unlike LinkDotNet, which allows you to use your own modem/router.

For example with Linkdotnet 1MB student package comes at Rs.885, which includes Rs.150 for modem rental. If you have your own ADSL modem, then you can get the same connection at Rs.735.

via=’http://propakistani.pk’

It seems like PTCL is going to double the DSL speeds of broadband customers very soon, most likely with in month or two, at most – same like it did last year. According to news the existing packages will be doubled as

• 1 mbps to 2 mbps
• 2 mbps to 4 mbps
• 4 mbps to 8 mbps

According to PTCL representative and feedback of different users PTCL is testing these double speeds on randomly selected subscribers from different areas of country. These users will be downgraded after the testing period ends to their original speeds and will be upgraded after official announcement, which is most likely to be on 23rd March, but can be delayed as no final date has been announced yet.

The up gradation process may take several months according to the size of network. Though PTCL is using is ADSL2+ which supports up to 24mbps but at same time there are many subscribers on Copper media, which supports up to 4 mbps at most (that too with distortion).

We hope that student package users will also get this upgrade and can enjoy higher speeds at discounted rates as recently PTCL discontinued all student packages above 1mbps.

We will keep you informed on this, you can also share your experience in comments if you got this test up gradation.

No official words on the situation yet.

via ProPakistani

PTCL is going to get aggressive with hosting business as well. This is evident from its recently announced data center facility in Karachi.

PTCL has been offering web hosting and domain registration service since long, however, it didn’t show the seriousness the way it is demonstrating now.

For hosting packages from PTCL click here

Tough time ahead for local web hosting companies, given that PTCL can manage billing so easily through its already running landline billing system. It merits mentioning here that Pakistani consumer is usually troubled due to in-availability of credit cards – a must have to buy hosting and domains from hosting companies.

Below is the PR for PTCL data center facility.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL) has launched the largest data center in Pakistan, the first of which will be located in Karachi.

This data center is engineered using the same rigid specifications, consistent with international standards and data center certification bodies and is enabled with technologies that proactively manages an enterprise’ mission-critical applications for predictable and continuous performance.

The PTCL Data Center is protected from intrusion and failure with multi-layered security, fail-safe redundancy, diversity measures, and rapid response recovery measures.

Talking about the data center, Senior Executive Vice President South Karachi, PTCL Abdullah Yousaf, said that PTCL’s investment in these type of services underscores its commitment to the rapidly expanding ICT sector in Pakistan and highlights the rapidly growing demand in this market who turn to PTCL for integrated hosting and network solutions, allowing them to focus on their core business. PTCL is making these investments on behalf of the business community of Pakistan, so that our customers can focus their resources on their core businesses, entrusting PTCL to provide what we do best – ICT.

The new center is directly connected to PTCL’s global MPLS backbone to offer a rich portfolio of hosting solutions with unparalleled network performance and features. PTCL offers capabilities designed to deliver greater efficiencies for hosting customers through the use of technologies such as storage on demand, processing on demand, business continuity and disaster recovery, all of which are integrated with PTCL network services.

Senior Executive Vice President, Commercial, Naveed Saeed while highlighting the importance of data centre stated that the aim is to provide business enterprises in Pakistan a reliable, responsive and resilient infrastructure to suit the their needs. The data center is designed and built to accommodate an enterprise’ IT equipment and software in a secure, managed and climatically controlled environment. The bottom-line is to benefit our customers in terms of cost-effectiveness, efficiency of processes and scalability of needs.

PTCL is the only unified service provider in Pakistan and is able to service all enterprise segments with a comprehensive portfolio of products including fiber optic and wireless connectivity, MPLS, VPN, Managed and Hosted technology solutions. And now with PTCL’s data centre, a tailor made accommodation for an enterprise’ application processing environment together with appropriate connectivity to the fully redundant self healing optical fiber network backbone, a much higher level of security and technology support to an enterprises’ mission critical operations is being offered

PTCL Complaint Center

The banner in the picture reads:
We have been trying to get out PTCL number 042-6371795 fixed for the last six weeks, but without any success!

It is not clear whether putting up a banner to register your telephone complaint worked or not. But one can only imagine how desperate this person had to be that he resorted such extreme measures of spending money on the printing of this banner and then hoisting it on a busy city road. Or, maybe, he is just trying to make light of what has to be a really frustrating situation. As they say, “Lahore, Lahore hai!”