Pakistans' Flailing DSL Industry

In a recent post, I mentioned that Wateen was launching a rescue mission as far as Pakistans' flailing DSL industry is concerned. However, its tentative launch date has come and gone, with no realistic indication of an eventual rescue - this in turn has led to consumers debating about the viability of the project, more specifically, the fact that other organizations are giving "256k, 512k, et al without any caps." For one, we've determined the ridiculous price tags that accompany the same (e.g. 40USD for a 256k "unlimited download" (20gb per month in Pakistan is considered unlimited!) given by Cyber(again - void left for users imagination)) so we're not going to go into that here. Lets look at some other arguments.

They might be giving you 256k, but have a look at the CR. If that doesn't make it dismal enough, consider the fact that your medium is copper - 95% of the time the cable provided by your lineman will fail all tensile tests you can perceive. Hence, any dropping, or the least bit of wind that tends to frequent us once in a blue moon, will result in sagging as far as the cable is concerned.

Complement that with the fact that their backbones are absolutely ridiculous - Cyber for instance started off as a decent corporation, but once it had the consumers, its become a "sethh sahabs" (officially translated to "big bosses" but realistically determined as "pay us to give you nothing") company. Corporate accounts are given preference, while the everyday user can only get service after launching a bout of verbal volleys towards their reps.

Even if you put in the effort of testing your cables versatility, and the provider has a perfect setup, you are dependent on PTCL whenever your line encounters issues - yes, the least bit of static on copper is an issue. Hence, the justification for the statement "good Internet, and Pakistani providers do not go in the same sentence."

PTCL is the only provider that is offering the service on fiber. However, that ties you down to an annual contract - add to that, the first 3 months are unlimited downloading, but then you are capped. So that doesn't work in the most responsive of ways. Of course, conveniently, they give you the connection within 7 days, but then take a month to fix the kinks.

Gerry's keeps on shutting itself down every now and then for a few hours, informing you that they're upgrading their servers. The number of times they've gone down, they should be the highest ranked providers in the market. Unfortunately, they're not.

One would have hoped that Wateen would have come to the rescue, but given this despicable introduction, they're not one to rest your hopes on. When in Pakistan, do what the Pakistanis do seems to be their motto.