Pakistan joins world’s lowest telecom tariff club: The Post

Associated Press of Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: India can no longer claim of being amongst the world's lowest telecom tariffs", as Pakistan boasts of far more competitive mobile services, especially for international (ISD) calls.
So while Indian telecom consumers have been celebrating the benefits of competition and low calling rates, they can now happily push operators and telecom regulators to lower their tariffs further.
The international calls to some of the most frequently called countries from India and Pakistan - such as United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), Canada, Germany and Hong Kong - present a stark comparison of how Pakistani mobile users are so much better-off than the Indians.
"Pakistani operators offer such ISD calls at rates as low as (Pakistani) Rs 1-1.99 per minute. In comparison, Indian mobile subscribers are still paying Rs. 5-6 per minute to call these countries.
In some cases, the ISD rates from Pakistan while calling mobile phones in these countries are slightly higher, but far lower than those available to Indian consumers," says Shalini Singh, a renowned journalist of India, wrote in an article recently published in a leading Indian newspaper.

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The Worlds Biggest IT Tower to be in Pakistan: Daily.pk

The multi-million rupee IT Tower project will take about 2 years to complete after which it will be the biggest call center in the world, said City Nazim Mustafa Kamal.

The call center in Sydney is presently regarded as the biggest with 8,000 call seats but the IT Tower in Karachi will have 10,000 call seats under one roof.

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Scope exists for boosting IT ties with Canada: Dawn

By Latafat Ali Siddiqui

TORONTO, May 2: There is a big scope of cooperation between Ottawa and Islamabad in the field of information technology, said the leader of Pakistan’s IT delegation here on Thursday.Headed by Aon Ashraf Rana, Director, Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), the 21-member delegation comprised representatives of 16 leading Pakistani IT and software development companies.The delegation visited Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto where they met parliamentarians and officials of leading Canadian IT firms and banks.While in Toronto, the delegation met John Wilkinson, the Provincial Minister for Research and Innovation, and Dr Shafiq Qaadri and Yasir Naqvi, members of Ontario’s Provincial Parliament.The delegation also attended a reception hosted by Canada-Pakistan Business Council (CPBC).Ashraf Rana told Dawn that Pakistan was making rapid progress in the field of information technology. “Our fast growing IT industry will be worth $11 billion in 2011,” he said.He also said Pakistan had been promoting the brand image of its IT industry globally through participation in trade fairs and specialised exhibitions.These fairs and exhibitions, he added, provide an interactive platform to PSEB member companies to practically demonstrate their capabilities and simultaneously promote Pakistan as an “attractive outsourcing gateway of the global IT industry”.Speaking at a reception held here in honour of the delegation, Pakistan’s Consul General Tassaduq Hussain said his country was an attractive destination for IT services, especially for outsourcing as IT and telecommunication were among the fastest growing sectors in Pakistan.

Original Link: http://www.dawn.com/2008/05/03/ebr20.htm