Competition is always a great thing in any given market for consumers and for the providers too. As the competition increses prices drops down more people will be interested in such producst ebcause of affordability.

However to be honest, I am not impressed with the packages announed by Wi-Tribe and the intial launch is only in 3 major cities and that is all.

Looking at a bigger picture, me personally, not impressed by the approach of all the operators of Wimax technology. The first thing could be they are intentionally not utilizing all the avenues and waiting for the competitors to jump in with innovation. There is so much you can do over this network, portability and connectivity on the go can be just another thing but maybe we need to wait for another few years to see this happening.

First thing I do not like about these companies (including PTCL) is lack of suggestion to people to go wireless. e.g. PTCL doesnt provide you an option to go with a WLAN compatible Modem, and these Wimax companies they give you these modems on ridiculously high prices. I personally think they should throw these modems in on affordable prices and along with them offer the devices compatible to them like netbooks, PDAs, and why not IPHONES? I mean it makes perfect business sense to me!

Another thing is why cant they launch something like a USB dongle recently introduced over the CDMA networks? I mean to me it doesn’t sound like a rocket science to develop a receiver/adaptor of that standard, it should be similar to the standard Wi-Fi adaptors.

In a nutshell I think its great to see a potential platform in pakistan but we do need some innovative executives sitting in top offices to come up with something that create a new BUZZ of IT & Communication in Pakistani market. I personally think that Pakistani market has a lot of potential which can be utilized through interesting, attractive and agreesive approach.

Izhar Cheema

Overall its not about Wateen Vs Augere Vs Witribe or LinkdotNet, it is about overall broadband expansion to help the country’s needs.

Happy you like Wateen! Yes there are teething problems, every service does! But in the end it all works out.

Lets put it like this that between Wateen and Mobilink they have expanded Broadband market by say 70K-100K. By 12/2009, it will be 3 times (say 300K). With Witribe and Augere launch they will also expand market by another 100K. So between 4 companies 400,000 customers are expected by 12/2009. Not bad. That will be 3 times more then on PTCL DSL.

Look at it another way. The competition has forced PTCL (another of my past employers) to decrease tariff and improve service.