Pakistan's Mobile Broadband Speeds Faster Than India's

[Riaz Haq]

Even  before 3G and 4G roll-outs, Pakistan's mobile data users enjoy an average bandwidth of 1.5 Mbits/sec and peak bandwidth of 14.7 Mbits/sec, according to a report published by Akamai Technologies, Inc. The Akamai data includes usage from smartphones, tablets, computers, and other devices that connect to the Internet through mobile network providers. The only mobile broadband option available to users in Pakistan has so far been PTCL's EVO.

Results of Google-sponsored Survey in Pakistan Source: Express Tribune

Akamai Technologies, the creator of this report, operates an Internet content delivery network headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Akamai's network is one of the world's largest distributed-computing platforms, responsible for serving between 15 and 30 percent of all web traffic around the world.

Mobile Broadband Speeds. Source: Akamai

Akamai report ranks 16 countries in Asia by mobile Internet speeds. South Korea tops the list with average 14.7 Mbits/sec and 41.3 Mbits/sec peak. Vietnam is at the bottom with 1.1 Mbits/sec average and 6.5 Mbits/sec peak. India ranks second from bottom with 1.3 Mbps average and 8.7 Mbps peak.

With 3G and 4G roll-outs currently underway in Pakistan by multiple carriers, companies like Zong are talking about delivering  speeds of up to 42 Mbps while other companies are offering 3G speeds of up to 21 Mbps. Even if they fall short, I expect that the average mobile broadband speeds in Pakistan should still be lot faster than what's available in the country today.

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[Riaz Haq]

Less money moves through wireless transfers in India than in either Pakistan or Bangladesh, both of which have smaller populations.

As we report this week, in much of the developing world, mobile money is evolving. Initially just a means of making payments, it’s now becoming a platform for an entire financial-services industry. But one of the world’s biggest and poorest countries has remained immune to the attractions of mobile money. Despite the potential benefits, “the uptake has been limited,” says Graham Wright of MicroSave, a financial-inclusion organisation working in India. “And because of those challenges, the mobile operators are unsure about how much to invest in this business.”

That doesn’t mean there isn’t opportunity. India has 15 mobile money providers, second only to Nigeria. Of the 904 million mobile subscriptions in India, 371 million (pdf) are in rural areas. Analysts think that mobile money transfers in India could be worth $350 billion annually (paywall) by next year. Yet the state of the industry remains small: Less money moves through wireless transfers in India than in either Pakistan or Bangladesh, both of which have smaller, poorer populations.

So why, despite boasting 15 mobile money services, does India lag so far behind other developing nations?

The simple answer is regulation. India requires mobile operators to work with banks to provide the services. Mobile networks would like instead to have their own agents who can cash out the digital money into hard currency. Much of the infrastructure is already in place, because there are so many locations where customers can top up on airtime. But the mobile operators aren’t allowed to use those sales outlets as financial agents.
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Yet the banks aren’t filling the gap. They have failed to serve rural areas, especially thinly-populated ones. Nor are they particularly keen on sending agents to operate in small villages. A report (pdf, p.31) on financial services for the poor, commissioned by the Reserve Bank of India, called the situation in both rural and urban India “grim,” with 64% of Indians lacking bank accounts. “The business case for providing mobile money services to the unbanked in the most remote rural areas of India is not appealing to banks,” reports the GSM Association (pdf), a trade body of mobile operators.

http://qz.com/222964/why-mobile-money-has-failed-to-take-off-in-india/

[Riaz Haq]

Mobilink Pakistan's parent company VimpelCom Ltd. ("VimpelCom", "Company" or "Group") VIP, -1.88% a leading global provider of telecommunications services operating in 14 countries and headquartered in Amsterdam, and Twitter, Inc., the world leader in public social network services today announced that they have agreed a partnership to offer VimpelCom's customers new ways to connect and engage with communities and content on Twitter.------
Mobilink Pakistan is the first VimpelCom operating company to launch Twitter mobile services under this partnership. VimpelCom will expand the service to its other operations.

The agreement is a part of VimpelCom's consistent strategy of providing its customers with the best mobile internet experience, complementing its current partnerships with Google Play and Windows Phone store to allow VimpelCom smartphone customers using their mobile accounts to pay for digital content, with Opera Software to deliver better mobile web browsing and with WhatsApp and Wikimedia to increase customer engagement and stimulate use of the mobile internet.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/vimpelcom-and-twitter-partner-to-s...