“There was a time in past, not long ago, when you had to pay charges for listening to a phone callâ€
Mobile boom is relatively new in Pakistan as in the other third world countries. Presently a cell phone has become a basic necessity of every young person countrywide. Rate of growth of the consumer market has been tremendous despite of only prevision of basic facilities like email, SMS, EMS, and EDGE. Consumers here don’t know the meaning of 3G. Surprisingly network coverage of mobile phone operators is so pathetic in some areas that people don’t use cell phones although they can afford it. Off all these things the call and messaging rates are very reasonable.
Paktel was the first ever cellular operator in Pakistan, but with the launch of Mobilink GSM in 1998 it started to loose market share. According to the recent official statistics Mobilink offers the largest coverage area and entertains more than 21 million consumers. Ufone, Tenenor and Warid Tel also joined the bandwagon later on. Though Mobilink boasts quality services, its consumers complain of high tariffs. The company also introduced basic models of Blackberry and Motorola KRZR.
Older generation and cell phones
“I saw a guy talking to himself wearing earrings, what next God wants us to see!â€
“Can you please switch this thing to meeting mode?â€
[A teacher after his phone rang in the class room]
As cell phone revolution is relatively a new phenomenon in Pakistan the older generation has to struggle to learn and get used to this new technology. Generation Y (born after 1980) is quite comfortable with this technology. There is hardly any gathering of these people not sharing ringtones and stuff over Bluetooth.
My personal experience has been great with cell phones. I use it as an alarm clock, MP3 player, internet connectivity, video player, remote control, and off course calling and messaging. I quite satisfied that I don’t use the old fashioned walkman with sequential access, but use Sony Walkman with top notch earphones. For me cell phone appears to be taking over PC and laptops. I have already abandoned listening music over my PC; I only use it to transfer music to my cell phone. If I had 3G I would even use my PC but just download music when desired! I also sometimes check email through GPRS. With the introduction of 3G and 4G technologies a lots of content and information access will come to the consumers in Pakistan and these small gadgets can become the next big thing in the market!
- Add new comment
- 6283 reads
