China Mobile Communication Corporation (CMCC) has offered to lay a fibre optic cable from Karakoram to Gwadar.

The offer was made by a Chinese delegation which met Adviser to the PM on Interior Affairs Rehman Malik with a condition that it be provided conducive investment environment.

Sources privy to the meeting held in Islamabad told The News that the Chinese delegation was led by Co-Chairman CMCC Zhang Chunjiang and comprised other members and Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Luo Zhaohui.

Sources further revealed the head of the delegation took up the long-standing LDI (long-distance international) licence issue with the adviser.

Chunjiang pointed out that despite getting approval from the prime minister and the cabinet and clear directives from the ministry of information & technology, the PTA has refused to issue LDI licence to China Mobile.

Such actions from the side of Pakistani authority of refusing could limit investment in this sector of the industry, they said. They further revealed that the delegation mentioned that due to non-issuance of LDI licence, Zong has been paying a huge amount for using other network for international roaming.

CMCC Co-Chairman had also mentioned that one month back Federal Minister for Investment, Senator Waqar Ahmed Khan, also gave assurance for issuance of LDI licenses within two weeks but so far no action was made and the issue of getting LDI license remained unsolved.

The meeting has also informed about the China Mobile future plans to invest another $500 million in the country's economy during 2009 in the areas of building new network capacity of more than 20 million customer base and other infrastructure. The delegation had pointed out that the company had so far invested $1.66 billion in Pakistan and has generated more than 1,700 direct and over 40,000 indirect jobs in the country. Similarly, China mobile had paid $106 million in direct taxation and paid another $91.5 million under various heads to the government. The delegation asked the adviser for providing a level playing field to all the stakeholders of the cellular industry.

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk

Telenor Wins Rural Pakistan Coverage Deal

Pakistan's Universal Service Fund (USF) and Telenor have entered into a Rs. 930 million (US$11.6 million) contract to provide basic telephony and data services to the population in the yet un-served areas of Sanghar, Tharparkar Umerkot and Mirpur Khas districts.

Telenor and the USF have already signed two similar contracts earlier - for Malakand and Bahawalpur Lots.

Chief Executive Officer of USF, Parvez Iftikhar, said that an un-served population of around 1.13 million (13% of the total population of Sindh) will benefit from this project.

At the occasion Jon Eddy Abdullah said, "We, at Telenor Pakistan believe in breaking socio-economic barriers through use of communication technology, especially in remote areas of the country. We stand firm in our commitment for more such ventures with support of Government of Pakistan and Ministry of IT."

There are currently eight more projects for which USF has called for bids. Four of these projects belong to Basic Rural Telecom, Three are aimed at expanding Broadband in the unserved cities and towns of the country and one is for Optic Fiber expansion in Baluchistan. Bids for these projects are due in the coming weeks.

Source: Cellular-News.com

Here is another nice tip for that if you have forgotten your MMC phone password. This tip will show you your phone's MMC password. (use this at your own risk, I am not responsible for any bad situation)

1. Use any of the file explorer (for example appman,fexplorer etc)
2. Go to C:\system\"mms store"
3. Send "mms store" file to your PC.
4. At PC open the file with notepad, there you can see your MMC password :)