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The Battle Begins!

Most of the readers probably know by now that Warid telecom has commenced its operations and connections are now available in 28 cities of Pakistan. With the final competitor now entering the colloseum, what should we buy? Which telecom firm can provide us with the most reliable service and not empty our pocket too much? Anyway, today it’s Warid all over the city so let’s talk about it first and see what it has to offer! WARID RATES Type: Pre Paid Activation Tax: Rs 300 Free Air Time: 118.58 VAS Line Rent (Optional): 50 Category Peak off Peak Rs/min Friends and Family ( A maximum of 5 allowed) 1.50 Rs/min 1.00 Rs/min Warid to Warid 2.00 Rs/min 1.50 Rs/min Warid to PTCL and other local operators 3.00 Rs/min 2.75 Rs/min International Zone 1 9.00 Rs/min 8.00 Rs/min International Zone 2 18.00 Rs/min 17.00Rs/min Free Minutes 0 Free SMS 0 Free MMS 5 x 100 Kb Free Wap/GPRS 1 MB SMS Warid to Warid 0.50 Rs/min 0.50 Rs/min SMS (Other Local operators) 1.00 Rs/min 1.00 Rs/min SMS (International) 5.00 Rs/min 5.00 Rs/min Content(SMS and MMS) 0 0 MMS (per 100 Kb) 3.00 Rs/min 3.00 Rs/min Internet Wap (per 200 Kb) 3.00 Rs/min 3.00 Rs/min Prices exclusive of all govt. Taxes VAS is only offered if the line rent for VAS is paid on a monthly basis. Notes apply to all packages: Security deposits would be as follows National: Rs 1000 International: Rs 5000 International Roaming: Rs 20,000

Pretty competitive and intelligent rates I would say! For just another person who wants a decent yet simple mobile connection, I would say Warid is not a bad choice but neither is Telenor and we should keep in mind here that Telenor has fulfilled its promise and kept the rates and Tariff guide easy to understand with absolutely no hidden costs whatsoever and many have been disappointed from what Warid has brought to the market.Warid on the other hand has somewhat twisted rates to make customers. There are some obvious perks of a Warid Prepaid ZEM connection like no Charges for Voice mail and a pretty much flat rate for other operators and the obvious massive attraction of a very cheap rate for International calls to the U.S.A and Europe. Call waiting, conferencing etc is obviously there but I’m having to mention this since Ufone prepaid customers like me don’t even get those as a part of our package plan! The SIM cost is reasonable I would say because with Ufone giving a free connection with every Rs.250 card nowadays, people will still prefer Warid. And then there’s an obvious stupid factor that because Warid is owned by a Sheikh from Dubai, people here think that the investments will be great and the service will be good, let me remind us all here that it is a business for him and he will carry it on as a business, Warid is not here to do us brotherly favors but to provide us for what we pay to it! Telenors FREE MMS and SMS promotional offer will end on the 31st of May and it is now being rumored that they will bring their rates down now with the launch of Warid, this doesn’t seem surprising but one company that I’m really expecting to offer some sort of attraction for people is Ufone, its actually been quite a while now since they’ve offered something special and in the case of Mobilink, I don’t think anyone should hope anything from them. They are in a world of their own which I’m afraid won’t last much longer if they don’t show a response. Well the introduction of GPRS was surely a good step and an achievement but it wasn’t enough. Paktel has done everything they could and should have done to sell connections but unfortunately, they’ve brought balance transfer, incoming call pays but that’s about it, they haven’t really spent on their network with the investment of only $70million. Their voice quality is as bad as Mobilinks service and they’ve decided they won’t do anything about it! The greatest spectacle of the day for me was perhaps not Warid’s launch but the quarter page congratulations message that Telenor has sent to Warid, it really marks their decency and standard. A similar response should have been the way Ufone and Moblilink should have greeted Warid telecom. A first in Pakistan, Warid has introduced 30-second charging rather then the conventional 1 minute cost of call, if you talk for 30-seconds or less, you pay that amount only. Not the whole minute! It was very pleasing to hear that, why pay for the extra time when you’ve only talked for a few seconds? But what was truly disappointing from Warid was its advertising campaign. Its okay if you have banners flying all over the city and it’s the talk of the town but when you give something in print, a UAN number perhaps, it should not be busy and you should have the capacity to handle the mass number of calls you will get! I read the paper at 7 AM and called their helpline up and asked for the complete guidance of tariff and what I get to hear is: “Sir we can’t disclose this as yet, please call us after 9” I’m leaving the readers to guess what happened next! But that’s not it! Look at Warid’s website and see for yourself! Even Paktel and Mobilinks website is better! The website is TOTAL BULLSHIT! It doesn’t work properly in Firefox, Is badly managed, contains very limited information, is mostly filled with ‘Sheikh blah blah owns the company and we own Bank Al Falah’ and some other stuff. Earlier in the day it contained the Tariff and everyone could see but at the time of writing this thing, I think they are shy that we couldn’t give people what they expected! I.E Calls to Dubai local, free weekend, Free Warid to Warid, Free SMS. Speaking of what people expected, lets talk about the rumors that had clouded the skies before Warids arrival. Well no, lets not talk about them since none of them came out to be true! But, what are really nice about Warid are their postpaid packages, good pricing which is really quite attractive, if I was to get a Warid connection, I would buy a postpaid one.Telenor offers unlimited Validity of their connections and easlyload which is a major perk for customers provided that is EASILY available! Warid on the other hand has card denominations of Rs100, 250, 500 and 1000 with each of them having the same validity period of one year from the date of recharge. So loading a Jazz card worth Rs300 and keeping it for 45 days is a total waste. With the Pakistan budget expected on the 6th of June, further reduction in taxes for connections and withholding taxes is expected as the PTA suggests. Data In my point of view now has a great potential and rightly so because the future of mobile telecommunication will be based on mobility, faster and better quality information exchange and easy access to the internet anywhere and everywhere.Further analysis will be available as the titans battle it out, we will be there to pick up those pieces!