Press Release

September 14th 2006

SAMENA Telecommunications Council, yesterday, organized a corporate-level WiMAX seminar to raise awareness level amongst Pakistan’s telecom professionals, decision makers, and members of the academia about the latest revolution that the country’s telecom sector, in particular, the broadband sector, is about to experience in the near future.

In his address to a large attendance, Chairman PTA Maj Gen (R) Shahzada Alam Malik appreciated the efforts of SAMENA Telecommunications Council for organizing the seminar and working to introduce a new sense of innovative collaboration in Pakistan. The PTA Chairman also reinforced the importance of deploying WiMAX in Pakistan as “wireless broadband connectivity is the best option for Pakistan.” The Executive Managing Director, Thomas W. Wilson and Riaz Asher Siddiqui, Vice President, Network Operators Relations, SAMENA Telecommunications Council, were also present at the seminar.

Presentations were delivered by Dr. Mohammad Yaseen (Member Technical, PTA), Dr.Konstantinos Dimopoulos (Marketing Engineer, Intracom), Mr. Youssef Awada (Presales Engineer, Intracom), Primoz Kuzman (Key Account Manager, International Sales, Iskratransmission), and Mr. Jorge Soto (Sales Director, Gulf & Subcontinent, Intracom).

Pakistan’s first-ever live demo, demonstrating the voice, data, and video capabilities of the WiMAX technology was given at the conclusion of the seminar to support the theoretical discussions and product presentations given during the first and the second sessions of the seminar. Several companies showed their keen interest to make possible investments in deploying WiMAX solutions, befitting their specified requirements.

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, commonly known as WiMAX, is designed to provide ubiquitous broadband multimedia data over wireless channels in an utterly packet-based environment, with range greatly surpassing what is currently available with other wireless broadband technologies such as WiFi. Where WiFi systems provide high bandwidth, their coverage is limited to only a few hundred meters; current mobile technologies allow for extended signal transmission but offer small bandwidth. WiMAX, taking the best of both systems, promises to meet demands for both bandwidth and extended coverage.

SAMENA Telecommunications Council, launched in April 2006 and headquartered in Dubai, UAE, is a non-profit telecommunications organization that embodies a community of South Asian, Middle Eastern and North African telecom operators, regulatory bodies, and manufacturers. It aims to serve as a vehicle of collaboration and knowledge not only for its Members but also for other telecom entities in the SAMENA region.

Telecom players from the following countries are part of the Council’s network:

Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.