Development of IPTV Introduction to PTCL

PTCL Smart TV

1.1 About PTCL

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) is the

largest telecommunication company in Pakistan. This company
provides telephony services to the nation and still holds the status of
backbone for country's telecommunication infrastructure despite arrival
of a dozen other telcos including telecom giants like Telenor and China
Mobile . The companay consists of around 2000 telephone exchanges
across country providing largest fixed line network. GSM, CDMA and
Internet are other resources of PTCL, making it a gigantic organization.
The Government of Pakistan sold 26% shares and control of the
company to Etisalat in 2006.

PTCL is also part of the consortiums of three major Submarine

communication cable networks: SEA-ME-WE 3, SEA-ME-WE 4 and I-
ME-WE.

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) is the

Pakistan's most reliable and largest converged services carrier which
provides all telecommunications services from basic voice telephony to
data, internet, video-conferencing and carrier services to consumers
and businesses all over the country.

Whether it is an office in the largest city of Pakistan or a home in

a small village, the company is present in every corner of Pakistan to
serve its valued customers.

1.2 Vision

To be the leading Information and Communication Technology

Service Provider in the region by achieving customer satisfaction and
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PTCL Smart TV
maximizing shareholders' value'.

The future is unfolding around us. In times to come, we will be

the link that allows global communication. We are striving towards
mobilizing the world for the future. By becoming partners in innovation,
we are ready to shape a future that offers telecom services that bring us
closer.

1.3 Mission

 To achieve our vision by having

 An organizational environment that fosters professionalism,
motivation and quality
 An environment that is cost effective and quality conscious
 Services that are based on the most optimum technology
 "Quality" and "Time" conscious customer service
 Sustained growth in earnings and profitability

1.4 Core Values

 Professional Integrity
 Customer Satisfaction
 Teamwork
 Company Loyalty

1.5 Company Profile

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PTCL Smart TV
PTCL is the largest telecommunications provider in Pakistan.
PTCL also continues to be the largest CDMA operator in the country
with 0.8 million V-fone customers.

The company maintains a leading position in Pakistan as an

infrastructure provider to other telecom operators and corporate
customers of the country. It has the potential to be an instrumental
agent in Pakistan’s economic growth. PTCL has laid an Optical Fibre
Access Network in the major metropolitan centres of Pakistan and local
loop services have started to be modernized and upgraded from copper
to an optical network.

On the Long Distance and International infrastructure side, the

capacity of two SEA-ME-WE submarine cable is being expanded to
meet the increasing demand of International traffic.

1.6 History

From the humble beginnings of Posts & Telegraph Department in

1947 and establishment of Pakistan Telephone & Telegraph
Department in 1962, PTCL has been a major player in
telecommunication in Pakistan. Despite having established a network of
enormous size, PTCL workings and policies have attracted regular
criticism from other smaller operators and the civil society of Pakistan.

Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation (PTC) took over

operations and functions from Pakistan Telephone and Telegraph
Department under Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Act 1991.
This coincided with the Government's competitive policy, encouraging
private sector participation and resulting in award of licenses for cellular,
card-operated pay-phones, paging and, lately, data communication
services.
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PTCL Smart TV

Pursuing a progressive policy, the Government in 1991,

announced its plans to privatize PTC, and in 1994 issued six million
vouchers exchangeable into 600 million shares of the would-be PTCL in
two separate placements. Each had a par value of Rs. 10 per share.
These vouchers were converted into PTCL shares in mid-1996.

In 1995, Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganization)

Ordinance formed the basis for PTCL monopoly over basic telephony in
the country. It also paved the way for the establishment of an
independent regulatory regime. The provisions of the Ordinance were
lent permanence in October 1996 through Pakistan Telecommunication
(Reorganization) Act. The same year, Pakistan Telecommunication
Company Limited was formed and listed on all stock exchanges of
Pakistan

PTCL launched its mobile and data services subsidiaries in 2001

by the name of Ufone and PakNet respectively. None of the brands
made it to the top slots in the respective competitions. Lately, however,
Ufone had increased its market share in the cellular sector. The PakNet
brand has effectively dissolved over the period of time. Recent DSL
services launched by PTCL reflect this by the introduction of a new
brand name and operations of the service being directly supervised by
PTCL instead of Paknet.

As telecommunication monopolies head towards an imminent

end, services and infrastructure providers are set to face even bigger
challenges. Pakistan also entered post-monopoly era with deregulation
of the sector in January 2003. On the Government level, a
comprehensive liberalization policy for telecom sector is in the offing.

Last Year, in middle of 2005 Government of Pakistan had

decided to sell at least 26 percent of this company to some private
agency. There were three participants in the bet for privatization of
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PTCL Smart TV
PTCL. Etisalat, a Dubai based company was able to get the shares with
a large margin in the bet.

Last year when Government was going to privatize the company

there was country wide protest and strike by PTCL workers. They even
disrupted Phone lines of some big Government institutions like Punjab
University Lahore and many lines of public sector were also blocked.
Military had to take over the management of all the Exchanges in the
country. They arrested many workers and put them behind bars. The
contention between Government and employees ended with a 30%
increase in the salaries of workers.

Many big change events are happening in PTCL at the moment

after its privatization. these include the VSS (Voluntary Separation
Scheme for its employees), ERP (SAP based), restructuring, B& CC
(Billing and Customer Care Software) etc. Another seemingly minor
change was change of brand identity (logo) that will present PTCL's
new face after privatization, with greater focus on customer satisfaction
and bringing about of new advancements in telecom for Pakistani
consumers.

1.7 Etisalat and PTCL

In 2006, Pakistan's Privatization Commission held open bidding

to sell 1.326 billion shares, along with management control of PTCL.
The Etisalat International Pakistan, a 100 % owned subsidiary of
Emirates Telecommunications Corporation - Etisalat was the highest
bidder for a 26 per cent stake in PTCL with a $1.96 (116 rupees) per
share offer. Etisalat takes pride in being a partner in progress wherever
it goes. To realize the dream of human progress, Etisalat is ever ready
to harness new technologies, build new partnerships and embrace the
future as it comes. This is the vision that drives Etisalat and directs the
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PTCL Smart TV
Etisalat-PTCL interaction. Subsequent to the takeover of management
control by Etisalat International Pakistan, PTCL continues its drive to
transform into a modern, customer-focused communication and
information provider with a new vigour and commitment. By focusing on
customer satisfaction, partnering with innovation, investing in training
and human resources and enhancing its infrastructure, PTCL is
evolving continuously. PTCL is one of the largest employers in the
country with its work force spread all over the country to provide an
essential service to the people of Pakistan. The changed telecom
environment requires PTCL to bring about changes in its corporate
culture to thrive more in the new environment.

1.8 Corporate and Commercial

Initiatives

As part of the transformation of PTCL, the management initiated

work on the re-branding of the Company as a modern and customer-
centric national carrier. Externally changing the logo was carried out to
reflect the commitment to the customers and the modernizing of the
infrastructure. Internally it gave employees a new zeal to stimulate the
mindset change from a technology and operations focused company to
a competitive carrier that has customer services as its hallmark. PTCL
made several investments in infrastructure development and added
network capacity to enhance services and expand its reach across the
country. The market in Pakistan is extremely competitive and PTCL has
the largest nationwide installed network infrastructure capability
including switching, transmission, fibre optic backbone, co-location and
international capacity. This gives PTCL a unique position in terms of
providing to carriers and individual consumers alike. With the
introduction of Vfone, the new CDMA-based WLL platform of PTCL, is
poised to become the largest fixed wireless telephony network in
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PTCL Smart TV
Pakistan. On the wireless broadband front, a major upgrade of the WLL
CDMA network was rolled out in order to provide wireless broadband
services in 17 major cities. Broadband Pakistan offers DSL services
with unmatched reliability, affordability and connectivity. Customers
have the option to packages with varying speeds from 512Kb to 2Mb
with unlimited downloads. Broadband customer service is available
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week at 1236 with highly trained
and professional representatives. As part of offering converged
services, expanding its service portfolio and improving customer
retention and acquisition, PTCL initiated the multi-channel Inter Protocol
Television (IPTV) project during 2006-07. This will be a landmark
addition to the PTCL service portfolio and will enable the company to
provide Triple Play (voice, video and data) services over a single fixed
line connection. With IPTV the customer will be provided with a single
interface to satisfy his communication and entertainment needs along
with single billing. Keeping in mind customer convenience, PTCL is
actively engaged in bringing an array of bill payment options to its
customers. PTCL customers now have the flexibility to choose between
dropping a cheque in a drop box at a location near them to sending
their payments through mail at a nearby post office. PTCL has also
offered a dedicated service to provide billing information to its valued
subscribers who can simply dial '1200' to access instant billing
information of the required PTCL service. With the introduction of this
service, customers no longer need to personally visit customer service
centers to find out what their bill amounts are and the automated
service is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to
further facilitate customers. Moreover, PTCL has introduced a variety of
valued added services for its customers while a number of others are in
the pipeline. Alongside the many packages and services PTCL is
continually seeking ways to facilitate its customers of which payment
cards and electronic modes of payments are just a part. On the
technical front, PTCL has laid an Optical Fibre Access Network in the
major metropolitan centres of Pakistan and local loop services have
started to be modernized and upgraded from copper to an optical
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PTCL Smart TV
network. PTCL has invested in the capacity of two SEA-ME-WE
submarine cables to meet the increasing demand of international traffic.
Additionally, PTCL is also part of a consortium that will put in place a
high-capacity fiber-optic submarine cable that stretches from India to
Italy and France via the Middle East, named I-ME-WE, to provide
effective resilience to the existing cable systems (SMW3 & SMW4).
PTCL has also signed an agreement with Huawei Technologies
Pakistan and Hewlett Packard (HP) to jointly launch the ‘Network
Operation Center’ project which has state-of-the-art fault detection
and resolution technology. This project would establish one main
network operation center and three regional ones with the
implementation of an alarm management system across the entire
PTCL network in an integrated manner. Beyond improved packages
and new products, PTCL, as a socially responsible corporate entity, has
been pursuing different social causes touching on areas of culture,
sports, music, environment and general welfare by supporting different
initiatives.

1.9 PTCL Smart TV

Free Smart TV Services

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PTCL Smart TV

Providing Free Smart TV Services to PTCL Customer. The

free Smart TV includes the following;

 Free BTV Channels

 Free VODs
 Free Set Top Box
 Usual Broadband charges will apply

Launched for the first time in Pakistan using the flexible Internet
Protocol (IP) technology, PTCL’s Smart TV is service which allows
customer to be more interactive and more in control with their TV
service as compared to conventional TV broadcast or cable TV. Smart
TV delivers television programs to households via broadband
connection and requires a subscription, a set-top box, and offers key
advantages over existing cable TV. You will now be able to:

 Playback / Rewind live TV channels at any time

 Parental Lock facility on any channel
 Search and select favorite programs by using ‘Electronic
Program Guide’. Viewers have full control over functionality such
as rewind, fast-forward, pause, and so on.
 Watch DVD quality movies on demand.
 Watch 100 plus digital quality TV channels.

Features and Benefits of ‘Smart TV’

Smart TV provides advanced features and services that are not

possible with traditional broadcast television systems. These advanced
features include Time Shifted Television (TSTV), Parental Control,
Electronic Program Guides (EPG), Global Television Channels, Video
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on Demand (VoD), Near Video on Demand (NVoD) and many more
interactive features.

 Time Shifted Television (TSTV)

Time Shifted Television is an exciting feature that allows

viewers to playback live TV channels at any time they want. So
when the viewer misses an important part of a movie, a play or a
sporting event, he can view it by ‘rewinding’ that particular channel

(displaying the symbol ), watching the missed part and then

coming back to live action. This function will be available to the TV
viewers for the first time in Pakistan and only through the PTCL
Smart TV service.

 Parental Control

This feature enables parents to restrict certain channels

which are not suitable for juvenile viewing. Restriction is enabled by
assigning a password to particular channel(s) thus empowering
parents to control the content their children can watch.

 EPG (Electronic Program Guide)

Electronic Program Guide (EPG) is an extremely responsive

and feature-rich application that manages viewer interaction during
channel and program selection. It is an on-screen guide to schedule
broadcast television programs, allowing viewers to navigate, select,
and discover content by time, title, channel, genre, etc, by use of
their remote control. It also provides access to billing details,
changing password and managing favorites.
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PTCL Smart TV

 VoD (Video On Demand)

Video on Demand is a service that provides end users to

interactively request and receive videos. VoD permits a customer to
select a program from a catalogue using EPG (Electronic Program
Guide). The play out of the selected movie starts nearly
instantaneously on the customer's TV. A film that is chosen, for
example, will be available for multiple viewing during 24 hours
without any extra charge.

 NVOD (Near Video On Demand)

NVoD is another exciting feature working like a community

TV Channel. A number of channels are allocated for NVoD. Popular
or recently released movies and programs are played on NVoD
channels and are available to all Smart TV viewers. Difference
between VoD & NVoD is that VoD is a personalized service catering
only to individual needs, on payment whereas NVoD is like
community cinema available to all Smart TV customers at no extra
cost. In case of NVoD channels, customer feedback plays a pivotal
role in content selection.
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PTCL Smart TV