PTA Sets Base Prices for 3G, 4G, Cellular Licenses

Source
By M Yasir
http://propakistani.pk

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued information memorandum for the auction of three 3G and one cellular license for 1900/2100 MHz (3G/4G/LTE) band and 800 MHz Band.

Base price for 3G license would be $ 210 million for duration of 15 years, while the auction will be held in multiple rounds through open outcry method.

Base price for Mobile Cellular (defunct) License is set at $155 million for duration of around 8 years.

The authority has set at $ 23.25 million as bid earnest money for auction of Cellular Phone defunct License for frequency spectrum of 800MHz whereas it set $31.5 million bid earnest money for auction of new Cellular Phone for spectrum of 1900/2100 MHz.

New License(s) for 3G/4G/LTE

Spectrum for Mobile Cellular (3G/4G/LTE etc.) licenses has been made available in blocks of 9.8 MHz given below. The winner of auction will have choice to select any block of 9.8+9.8 MHz from the available spectrum in 1900/2100 MHz:

Block Frequency

• Block A: 1920-1929.8/2110-2119.8 MHz (9.8+9.8MHz)
• Block B: 1929.8-1939.6/2119.8-2129.6 MHz (9.8+9.8 MHz)
• Block C: 1939.6-1949.4/2129.6-2139.4 MHz (9.8+9.8 MHZ)

Base Price for a block of 9.8+9.8 MHz is US $ 210 Million

Operator(s) can start their services by 2013 after completing all mandatory legal and financial requirements.

Defunct License For Technology Neutral services

PTA will award one technology-neutral nationwide license to Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) and including existing and new players, which was earlier held by Instaphone before termination of its services and operation.

The license awarded will be inclusive of radio frequency spectrum between 824.265 – 831.645 MHz (7.38) MHz and 869.265 – 876.645 MHz (7.38) MHz. The winning operator may launch any technology including 2.5G, 3G or 4G technology for rendering services.

The operator may start its services in 2012 after meeting all financial, network rolls out and operational requirements.

Bidding Process:

PTA in its Memorandum of Information (IM) 2012 stated that the Bidding Committee will be announced prior to start of the auction and shall continue the auction until there are no further bids. The time duration between two bids shall be five minutes. Each bidder shall be granted a timeout of fifteen minutes each, on request, only twice during the entire auction process.

Each successive bid(s) shall have to be more than the already quoted bid. Therefore, the subsequent bid increment shall be in multiple of $2 million with a minimum bid limit of 2 million and maximum bid limit of $10 million.

The successful bidder shall deposit 50 percent of the auction winning price, that is, Initial License/Spectrum fee after adjustment of the bid earnest money within thirty (30) working days in PTA designated bank account.

The remaining 50 percent of the auction winning price shall be deposited in 5 equal annual installments payable in US$ or equivalent in rupees. If the successful bidder fails to make the payment of first 50 percent of auction winning price (Initial License/Spectrum fee) within the stipulated time, the next highest bidder(s) in order of their bid(s) will be offered the license on the same auction winning price.

If no bidder is found ready to match the auction winning price, the Bidding session will be closed without awarding any license, PTA stated.

PTA shall forfeit the bid earnest money and all other amounts received from the defaulting bidders.

The defunct license shall only be issued after payment of first 50 percent of the initial spectrum fee within thirty (30) working days from the auction date. Whereas the new license shall only be awarded after payment of 100 percent of the auction winning price within sixty (60) working days from the date it is offered to the bidder.

PTA reserves the right, on the recommendation of the Bidding Committee, to disqualify any bidder and forfeit its money for different reasons such as failure of payment, misrepresentation and inaccuracy of facts in applications and corrupt practice, meaning the offering, giving, receiving or soliciting of anything of value to influence a public official in relation to auction process.

You can download Information Memorandum for licenses from following links

• Information Memorandum Mobile cellular (defunct) license (3.74 MB – PDF)
• Information Memorandum 3G/4G/LTW license (3.71 MB – PDF)

Nokia Announced Symbian Anna Smartphone - Nokia 500

Nokia announced its latest Symbian Anna smartphone which is Nokia 500. Nokia 500 is based on the specifications of Nokia C5-03. Like Nokia C5-03 it has 5MP rear camera built in facility which gives a sharper and clear images. Nokia 500 Pakistan has 3.2 inches TFT capacitive touchscreen with 16M colors which shows your text and images more clearly than Nokia C5-03. Its 1 GHz processor gives better and more powerful performance than Nokia C5-03. Nokia 500 has loaded with 2GB internal and up to 32GB extensible memory allows you to store your documents like music, videos, games and pictures in this single device for lifetime. Durable battery fitted in this smartphone provides talk time of up to7 h (2G) / up to 5 h (3G). Compare Nokia 500 Price in Pakistan with Nokia C5-03 which is bit higher.

Samsung Galaxy S III’s MWC debut reportedly canceled

Source
By: Dan Graziano

http://www.bgr.com

The highly anticipated follow up to Samsung’s Galaxy S II will not be unveiled at next month’s Mobile World Congress, according to The Verge. The Galaxy S III was rumored to be debuting in Barcelona next month, however it has reportedly now been delayed. The reason for delay was not disclosed, although it is still slated to be released “before summer” according to the report. The Galaxy S II was announced at last year’s Mobile Wold Congress, but Samsung is said to have been uncomfortable with the long delay between the global launch and availability in the U.S., where it is the most popular Android vendor. The company will still feature “interesting stuff” in place of the Galaxy S III, perhaps an updated Galaxy Tab or even a new Windows Phone handset.

Study: Multitasking hinders youth social skills

(CNN) -- FaceTime, the Apple video-chat application, is not a replacement for real human interaction, especially for children, according to a new study.

Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook, television and text messaging are more likely to develop social problems, says a Stanford University study published in a scientific journal on Wednesday.

Young girls who spend the most time multitasking between various digital devices, communicating online or watching video are the least likely to develop normal social tendencies, according to the survey of 3,461 American girls aged 8 to 12 who volunteered responses.

The study only included girls who responded to a survey in Discovery Girls magazine, but results should apply to boys, too, Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor of communications who worked on the study, said in a phone interview. Boys' emotional development is more difficult to analyze because male social development varies widely and over a longer time period, he said.

"No one had ever looked at this, which really shocked us," Nass said. "Kids have to learn about emotion, and the way they do that, really, is by paying attention to other people. They have to really look them in the eye."
The antidote for this hyper-digital phenomenon is for children to spend plenty of time interacting face-to-face with people, the study found. Tweens in the study who regularly talked in person with friends and family were less likely to display social problems, according to the findings in the publication Developmental Psychology.

"If you eschew face-to-face communication, you don't learn critical things that you have to learn," Nass said. "You have to learn social skills. You have to learn about emotion."

The Stanford researchers were not able to determine a magic number of hours that children should spend conversing per week, Nass said. Social skills are typically only learned when children are engaged and making eye contact, rather than fiddling with an iPod during a conversation, he said.

FaceTime and Skype are not replacements for actual face time because other studies have found that people tend to multitask while on video calls, Nass said.

Nass is a self-described technologist of 25 years, who has worked as a consultant with many major electronics firms, including Google and Microsoft. He said the findings disturbed him.

A few years ago, Nass worked on a study about how multitasking affects adults. He found that heavy multitaskers experience cognitive issues, such as difficulty focusing and remembering things. They were actually worse at juggling various activities, a skill crucial to many people's work lives, than those who spent less time multitasking, Nass said.

Source
By Mark Milian, CNNhttp://edition.cnn.com/

3G Telecom Technology – Pakistan Can Earn Billions of USD by Just Selling Air

Pakistan passed the 100 million subscriber milestone in Oct 2010, with five operators fighting for the market share day in & day out, but  still waiting for the introduction of 3G WCDMA technology (High Internet Speed Mobile Access with International Roaming),  to take the telecoms market to the much needed next level.

The 3G Licenses auctioned last year in our neighboring country fetched multi billion dollars, in license fee in addition to a similar amount of foreign direct investments, creating a spree of jobs for not only the highly educated, but also for the less educated  skilled hands, working on things like tower construction.

The question remains why we are shying away from this golden opportunity, to give the much needed life saving shot to our economy?

May be the reason lies in the situation, where the current operators are shying away from the investments that they would have to make, when the licenses are made available and are just keeping a few individuals at the right places “happy”, so that it is deferred, as long as they wish.

With the 3G services available in most of the countries of South Asia and even Africa, why  we are being deprived of the technological and economical benefits and playing the catch up game?

The 3G License or Spectrum auction, which is just like selling “air” is the easiest way to slightly mitigate the ever increasing unemployment rate in the country. Our peoples representatives in the both the houses should take this up seriously, to expedite the ever delayed process.

source 

By A. Muiz Khan
http://www.snayyar.com

Android to overtake iOS and become the top mobile platform for developers

Google's Android will become the preeminent platform for developers over the next 12 months, edging ahead of Apple's iOS, according to a study by research firm Ovum. Nearly all developers, however, will support both platforms.

Ovum's call comes as Android continues to suck up market share, with more companies using the platform to crank out a wave of mobile devices. While iOS has seen its market share growth slow in the recent years, it has always been seen as a more lucrative location for developers to make money. As a result, most apps came to iOS first, and the other platforms second.

That, however, could all change in the coming months, Ovum said. Android's prevalence is getting hard to ignore, and developers have incorporated new business models such as advertising and in-app purchases to spur revenue.

Ovum also said there is growing developer interest in Windows Phone and BlackBerry OS. The results come as both Microsoft and Research in Motion attempt to woo developers over to their respective camps.

"The growing momentum behind Windows Phone indicates that Microsoft has managed to convince developers that its platform is worthy of investment; its challenge now is to persuade consumers," said Ovum analyst Adam Leach.

The study also said developers are abandoning mobile-centric development tools such as Java, Flash and WAP, and moving to HTML5, a Web-based standard that can run across multiple devices and platforms.

by Roger Cheng
source 

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes from Greek τεχνολογία (technología); from τέχνη (téchnē), meaning "art, skill, craft", and -λογία (-logía), meaning "study of-".^[1] The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include construction technology, medical technology, and information technology.
Technologies significantly affect human as well as other animal species' ability to control and adapt to their natural environments. The human species' use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools. The prehistorical discovery of the ability to control fire increased the available sources of food and the invention of the wheel helped humans in travelling in and controlling their environment. Recent technological developments, including the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet, have lessened physical barriers to communication and allowed humans to interact freely on a global scale. However, not all technology has been used for peaceful purposes; the development of weapons of ever-increasing destructive power has progressed throughout history, from clubs to nuclear weapons.
Technology has affected society and its surroundings in a number of ways. In many societies, technology has helped develop more advanced economies (including today's global economy) and has allowed the rise of a leisure class. Many technological processes produce unwanted by-products, known as pollution, and deplete natural resources, to the detriment of the Earth and its environment. Various implementations of technology influence the values of a society and new technology often raises new ethical questions. Examples include the rise of the notion of efficiency in terms of human productivity, a term originally applied only to machines, and the challenge of traditional norms.
Philosophical debates have arisen over the present and future use of technology in society, with disagreements over whether technology improves the human condition or worsens it. Neo-Luddism, anarcho-primitivism, and similar movements criticise the pervasiveness of technology in the modern world, opining that it harms the environment and alienates people; proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism and techno-progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition. Indeed, until recently, it was believed that the development of technology was restricted only to human beings, but recent scientific studies indicate that other primates and certain dolphin communities have developed simple tools and learned to pass their knowledge to other generations.