MyAdhan Blog

Link: Qatar: QNB launches mobile banking

QNB has launched EAZYmobile, the first mobile banking service for customers in Qatar.
“EAZYmobile is an instant, reliable and flexible addition to the widely acclaimed EAZYLife banking service,” QNB said yesterday. It gives QNB customers all the benefits of internet banking, with the convenience of accessing these banking services while they are on the move. QNB said it is the first bank to offer the service in Qatar. Qatar’s largest lender has launched the service in both English and Arabic “to ensure everyone in Qatar benefits”. “EAZYmobile is an essential tool for our customers who want a fast, secure and efficient banking experience that travels with them wherever they go. EAZYmobile offers a wide range of banking transactions and services that cover bill payments, transfers, statements, news, and much more,” QNB said. To request the service, customers should SMS the word “mobile” to 2777. They will receive an SMS with detailed information on how to download the EAZYmobile application. The service is available to all customers with a 3G, GPRS or WiFi enabled mobile phone. QNB said it is completely secure due to the high level of encryption using the “latest security software”. EAZYmobile is available to all existing QNB customers immediately. Registration is simple. Customers can log on using the same username and password they use for EAZYinternet. Customers must have an EAZYinternet username and password for which they can register at http://ib.qnb.com.qa. They can also call QNB’s Customer Care Centre on 4407777.

Link: WiMax woos the Middle East

The next generation of internet and mobile services is a step closer after two major announcements, in the Gulf and the US, on the high-speed wireless standard called WiMax brought the technology to the brink of the mainstream. In the United States, a consortium of mobile network operators and technology companies announced new details of its plan to roll out a nationwide WiMax network. The backing of heavy hitters in the industry, including Google and ­Intel, gave the consortium and the WiMax technology it is promoting an important boost. And last Thursday in Saudi Arabia, Intel launched one of the most advanced communications research and development centres in the region, which will focus on the deployment of WiMax across the Middle East and Africa. “Our company is interested in two things: computing power and bandwidth,” said Craig Barrett, the chairman of Intel. “If there is a platform that offers more bandwidth, we will put our full weight behind it, and that is what we are doing with WiMax.” The US consortium, trading under the name Clearwire, said it expected more than 30 million subscribers to its service in the coming 10 years. The rollout would be underway by the end of the year, and by late next year up to 80 million Americans would be within range of its network. WiMax is one of a number of high-speed wireless technologies competing to become the standard for both mobile and internet access. A single WiMax transmission tower can cover a 30km radius with wireless internet at speeds faster than current DSL services, while also providing a traditional mobile phone service. Such reach means that WiMax networks can provide citywide wireless internet. Baltimore will be the first city in the US to have such a system, due in September. A WiMax network covering Amsterdam will be fully online at the end of August, with customers paying €20 (Dh115) per month to access wireless internet anywhere in the city.
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Link: China Mobile to invest another 800 Million Dollars in Pakistan

China Mobile, the world largest telecommunication organization will make further investment amounting to $ 800 million in Pakistan. This was stated by President of China Mobile Wang Gian Zhuo during a meeting with Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir here on Thursday. China Mobile has already made an investment of $ 800 million in Pakistan. Wang said that besides making further $ 800 million investment, he would also pursue many internationally acclaimed telecommunication organizations like Sony-Erricson to take part in the development of telecommunication in Pakistan. He said the Pakistan has great deal of opportunities for Foreign Investors as it offers equal level playing fields for both foreign and domestic investors. The President of China Mobile said that he had recently held very fruitful meeting with the Pakistani leadership and was impressed about the incentive Pakistan is offering for the Foreign Investors, particularly for Chinese Investors. Wang also informed Foreign Secretary that China Mobile will also contribute in the socio-economic uplift of the people of Pakistan. In this connection, he pointed out that his organization will provide free text books to the young students so that they could carry out their studies in a smooth way. The Foreign Secretary on the occasion thanked Wang Gian Zhou for his complements and said that his country would provide all possible assistance to the Chinese investors in Pakistan.

Link: Saudi Arabia: Intel, King Abdulaziz City launch 1st wireless mobile services

Following Intel Chairman of the Board Craig Barrett’s comments about the reality of a close digital future for the Middle East at the US-Arab Forum in May, Intel Corporation and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) announced today an agreement to launch Intel’s first wireless mobile services R&D lab in the Middle East. The new center will be hosted at KACST and it will serve the Middle East Turkey and Africa region. This lab will act as a hub to address the challenges of networking deployment, eliminate deployment hurdles for WiMAX-based wireless broadband, and offer professional services for wireless broadband service providers, telecom equipment manufacturers and system integrators. The lab will also conduct WiMAX client and infrastructure equipment validation interoperability testing, custom studies for performance optimization, pre-certification and experimentation with new WiMAX services and applications. “Research and development are the basis for future success and WiMAX is especially important in developing markets where wire line technology is limited due to the lack of infrastructure” said Barrett. “WiMAX requires virtually no infrastructure and can cover large rural areas with immediate benefits for the whole population. We are confident that this lab will provide an excellent platform for Arab scientists and scholars to be innovative in the field of telecommunications and in particular in the WiMAX and networking arena.” Prince Dr. Turki Saud Mohammed Al-Saud, vice president for Research Institutes at KACST participated in the launch of the lab and commented, “Research and development, and in particular, broadband availability via widespread implementation of WiMAX are critical to enabling the Arab economies to continue to grow. The young generation expects and deserves equal access to the tools of the knowledge economy and everyone will benefit as this generation becomes the leaders of tomorrow.” At the signing ceremony, Abdulziz Al-Noghaither, General Manager, Intel Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, said: “This is our first networking R&D lab of its kind in the region and Intel’s collaboration with KACST was crucial for its success. We thank KACST for the support and for sharing the belief that a centre of excellence of this kind is an important platform for the development of the region and for the nurturing of future talent and industry leaders.” In addition to accelerating the deployment of WiMAX wireless broadband services, the lab will make use of best known methods from other regions to help stimulate new innovative ideas for deployment in the region. The lab will put emphasis toward WiMAX mobility and broadband coverage problems in the region as well as other challenges such as validation of end-to-end network deployment, interoperability between client and base station and feature validation per WiMAX Forum system and network profiles.
With regional broadband penetration varying from 0.6 percent in Egypt, 2.4 percent in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to a maximum of 7.8 percent in the UAE , WiMAX is believed to be the best positioned wireless technology to reach the whole Arab population.

Link: Intel to set up WiMAX lab in Saudi Arabia

Intel Corporation and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) announced today an agreement to launch Intel’s first wireless mobile services R&D lab in the Middle East. The new center will be hosted at KACST in Riyadh and it will serve the Middle East, Turkey and Africa region. This lab will act as a hub to address the challenges of networking deployment, eliminate deployment hurdles for WiMAX-based wireless broadband, and offer professional services for wireless broadband service providers, telecom equipment manufacturers and system integrators, said a statement. The lab will also conduct WiMAX client and infrastructure equipment validation interoperability testing, custom studies for performance optimization, pre-certification and experimentation with new WiMAX services and applications. “Research and development are the basis for future success and WiMAX is especially important in developing markets where wire line technology is limited due to the lack of infrastructure” said Intel chairman Craig Barrett. “WiMAX requires virtually no infrastructure and can cover large rural areas with immediate benefits for the whole population. We are confident that this lab will provide an excellent platform for Arab scientists and scholars to be innovative in the field of telecommunications and in particular in the WiMAX and networking arena.” Prince Dr Turki Saud Mohammed Al-Saud, vice president for Research Institutes at KACST participated in the launch of the lab and said: “Research and development, and in particular, broadband availability via widespread implementation of WiMAX are critical to enabling the Arab economies to continue to grow. The young generation expects and deserves equal access to the tools of the knowledge economy and everyone will benefit as this generation becomes the leaders of tomorrow.” At the signing ceremony, Abdulziz Al-Noghaither, general manager, Intel, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, said: “This is our first networking R&D lab of its kind in the region and Intel’s collaboration with KACST was crucial for its success. We thank KACST for the support and for sharing the belief that a centre of excellence of this kind is an important platform for the development of the region and for the nurturing of future talent and industry leaders.” In addition to accelerating the deployment of WiMAX wireless broadband services, the lab will make use of best known methods from other regions to help stimulate new innovative ideas for deployment in the region. The lab will put emphasis toward WiMAX mobility and broadband coverage problems in the region as well as other challenges such as validation of end-to-end network deployment, interoperability between client and base station and feature validation per WiMAX Forum system and network profiles.

Link: UAE likely to get mobile TV services next year

Another Link: UAE: Mobile phone TV licence by next year

The UAE Tele-communications Regulatory Authority (TRA) hopes broadcast mobile TV services will be available in the country sometime in 2009. During a briefing on Tuesday, Mohammad Nasser Al Ganem, TRA director general and board member, said the consultation phase for introduction of the services will be completed at 3pm on June 26. Thereafter, TRA will take all the feedback and issue requests for proposals. “We will give the industry six weeks to submit their bids. TRA will evaluate the bids and announce the winner, who will be the licensee,” said Al Ganem. According to a TRA document, the licence will be valid for 10 years. The licensee will pay TRA a licence acquisition fee of Dh20 million. The licencee must also pay an annual licence fee of one per cent of revenues earned during the previous financial year or Dh100,000, whichever is higher. The fee must be paid each year on the anniversary date of the licence. In addition, the licencee is required to pay an annual royalty, equivalent to 30 per cent of its annual net profit before the royalty. “Hopefully, we will select the winner by end-2008 and then, make an announcement of the service,” Al Ganem said. The broadcast mobile TV services will be introduced to end users by both etisalat and du. The technologies available for broadcast mobile TV services are DVB-H, developed by Nokia, and Qualcomm’s MediaFlo. Now, broadcast mobile TV services are available only in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Finland, France and the US. “We are technology neutral. The best technology will be selected,” said Al Ganem. “We have a big customer base in the UAE.”

Link: Turkey needs €10 billion to catch up with European telecommunication

A senior official at the Center for European Policy Studies, or CEPS, said that Turkey needs to invest approximately 10 billion euros to reach European Union telecommunication infrastructure standards. Andrea Renda of the CEPS’ regulation department noted that this figure includes costs such as new technology and licensing fees. He maintained that Turkey’s tax burden on mobile communications is too high and that the delay in receiving third generation mobile communication, or 3G, licenses are the main handicaps for the sector. Given the fact that EU countries will be required to spend around 200 billion euros in total to transition to a fiber cable system, Renda pointed to the much heavier burden Turkey will have to bear when undertaking the process. Turkey’s unfavorable topography will make laying underground fiber cables a painful task, he noted. With the transition to fiber cables, copper cable will no longer be usable and all service will be provided by fiber optic cables and networks. Turkish Telecom, or TT, also made a decision to invest $4.3 billion in the transition to fiber cable, planned for 2010. This will allow TT to offer services like high-speed Internet and television broadcasting via Internet protocol, or IPTV, to more remote areas.

Link: UAE leads Middle East in telecom connectivity

The United Arab Emirates tops the Middle East in telecom connectivity, revealed a data compiled by analyst firm Arab Advisors Group. The analyst firm issued data of the annual Total Country Connectivity Measure (TCCM), where it has combined the fixed-line penetration, cellular penetration, and Internet user penetration rates (the number of subscribers per 100 people) of 19 countries to come up with a ranking that represented the extent of its communications connectivity at the end of 2007. The UAE topped with a score of 329.5 percent, up from 261.4 percent in 2006. The country boasts of a mobile penetration rate of 171.2 percent, which helped boost its score. According to the UAE’’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, the seven emirates had 7.6 million mobile subscribers at the end of 2007, 1.38 million fixed-line subscribers, and 904,000 Internet subscriptions, 42 percent of which were broadband. The population is estimated to be around 4.5 million. UAE is then followed by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, thus rounding up the top five. The same group represented the top five countries in 2006, but with a little bit of shake up in the rank order. With these countries, pumping in billion of dollars in expanding their telecom infrastructure, it comes as a little surprise that the six oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries along with Oman, which is ranked at seventh, dominates the connectivity in the region.

To celebrate our third anniversary we thought to upload the MyAdhan.com launch programme that was aired on the Saturday Night Live show on Islam Channel with Sajid Varda from June 2005. This is some vintage footage in which the Nasser Saleem Ahmed the Founder and CEO of MyAdhan talks about the concept around MyAdhan and the services it will provide. The actual show was about 40 minutes in length but we had to scale it down for YouTube. Enjoy!

Link: Opening up an Internet café in Syria? Good luck

Tough licensing procedures, harsh security regulations, strict censorship measures, and blatant abuses of personal privacy are among the litany of things that young entrepreneurs endure when setting up Internet cafés in Syria. New Internet laws keep coming and Syrian authorities often quote unwritten legal conditions because they are, like many Arab governments, behind the technology curve, always scrambling to figure out new ways to catch up in their methods of control. Take the bureaucratic process that any would-be Internet café owner must now endure. First, you have to get a license from the Syrian Telecommunications Institution, which inevitably involves a great deal of paperwork and administrative procedures. Next, there is a security license granted by the Interior Ministry in which a set of security instructions is issued in a coordinated effort with the Telecommunications Institution. Among the instructions given to potential café owners by this joint communiqué are that each café visitor must provide his name, ID, and the names of his or her mother and father. The café owner must then present to visitors instructions as to which religious and political websites they are banned from using. A typical sign-up sheet at an internet cafe in Syria. Names of father, mother and ID must be presented, although this is often not enforced. Reporters Without Borders estimates that the Syrian authorities had previously banned over 100 websites, while the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCMFE) estimates that more than 161 sites have been banned, with the latest being Wikipedia, Youtube and Maktoob blogs. As for the sites of “questionable moral standing,” they come at the end of the list of banned websites. Although in practice, the porn websites are available in nearly every café. Inevitably there are the lectures from the authorities in both governmental offices briefing you about what you need to avoid when you operate the café; euphemisms for “We will get you if you don’t censor your users.” And the penalties are stiff for those who fail to follow the rules. These range from simply closing the café to having the licenses withdrawn, paying huge fines and in extreme cases, jail time.