“A news article that appeared in a local English newspaper on December 8, 2022, said mistakenly that Telenor Pakistan is ceasing operations. We want to make it quite clear that this is untrue. The statement added, “Telenor Pakistan is devoted to supporting its clients and connecting them to what matters most.

According to an earlier report, Telenor may think about ending operations in Pakistan as a result of the alleged failure of its merger negotiations with Ufone. The study made reference to Telenor’s growing displeasure with conducting business in Pakistan as a result of the low profitability of the telecom industry. In addition, it stated that if the merger between Telenor and Ufone fails, the business may think about ceasing operations there.

The aforementioned reports of an instant foreclosure have been vigorously refuted by Telenor, which requested in its explanation that “Telenor Pakistan’s Official Spokesperson be always contacted for corporate opinion for such news items.”

End-to-end encryption, however, is only accessible to group chat users who have signed up for the beta program. Therefore, you must participate in the beta program in order to test it. For additional information about the beta version of Google Message, click this page.

Google also intends to soon integrate emoji reactions for RCS (Rich Communication Services) in its Messages app, in addition to end-to-end encryption in group conversations.

Google also made fun of Apple for not implementing RCS on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of SMS. The statement read, “Except Apple, all major cell carriers and manufacturers have implemented RCS.” Apple’s messaging is still stuck in the 1990s since it uses SMS to interact with users of Android smartphones.

Several months ago, the Mountain View-based search engine business began the #GetTheMessage campaign, which urged Apple to use RCS. CEO Tim Cook has stated that he would like to convert Android customers to iPhones, but the Cupertino-based tech company has been quite persistent and uncompromising in its position.

Simply get your mother an iPhone, he said.

It remains to be seen how the “green vs. blue bubble” debate plays out and how long it will take Apple to change its mind and implement RCS.

End-to-end encryption for Google Messages is now only accessible in the beta version, so it will be some time before it becomes available to the general public. Emoji responses for RCS will likely debut concurrently.

Throughout the month of October, complaints were received from a number of telecom service providers, including cellular mobile operators (CMOS), Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL), long-distance international (LDI), wireless local loop (WLL), and internet service providers.

A sizable portion of the total telecom subscriber base is made up of cellular mobile subscribers. Most complaints are thus related to this group. By October, there had been 12,700 complaints made against CMOs, of which 12,585 (99 percent) had been resolved.

5 781 complaints were made against Jazz, of which 5 760 (99 percent) were handled, according to PTA statistics. Additionally, 2,476 complaints were made against Telenor, and 2,421 (or 97% of them) were settled.

Similarly to this, 3,308 complaints were made against Zong, and 3,287 (99 percent) of them were resolved. Ufone received 1,133 complaints in total, 1,115 of which (98 percent) were handled.

Additionally, PTA received 157 complaints about basic telephone service, 94 of which were resolved in October, for a resolution rate of 59%. Furthermore, 389 (74 percent) of the 520 complaints made against ISPs were resolved.

According to our channel investigations, the download option for paid apps via mobile phone accounts has been suspended in the country. While this ban only applies to local transactions, it is worth noting that when installing a paid app, the Google Play Store still supports credit card payments.

This comes after the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) halted payments of $34 million to international service providers last week. The blockade/confusion caused havoc in the local tech community, with people unable to download paid Google Play Store apps using their mobile balance as a payment method.

Harcheez.com heard at the time that the central bank had suspended the direct carrier billing (DCB) method, causing payments to overseas service providers such as Google, Amazon, and Meta to get stalled.

As a result, given the country’s recent economic challenges, the government agreed to open Google transactions for a month while simultaneously devising a framework for an effective payment process in order to limit any liquidity shortfalls. In lieu of the payment barrier, and with no policy or process in place, Google has banned carrier-paid apps in Pakistan as it awaits the government’s intervention to find a solution.

The Ministry of Finance has now consented to IT Minister Syed Amin Ul Haque’s request for developing an effective method and making payments against Google App services. At the time, the minister stated that SBP had been asked to postpone the implementation of the DCB mechanism policy for one month.

Amin Ul Haque stated that telecom providers had been granted one month to adopt payment procedures and that the Ministry of IT, Finance, and the State Bank will develop a plan of action in mutual consultation within a month. Amin stated that in response to the Telecom operators’ plea for assistance, a letter was submitted to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar requesting that the payments are made and a timetable be established.

Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim also thanked Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and IT Minister Amin Ul Haque for making a timely decision on the issue.

“Relieved to see the DCB issue progressing towards a resolution. Thank you Syed Amin Ul Haque, Ishaq Dar and SAPM Finance Tariq Bajwa for ensuring Google Play apps remain available to Pakistani users. A whole-of-government approach is needed to strengthen the digital ecosystem,” he tweeted on Thursday.

For those who are unfamiliar, DCB is an online mobile payment system that allows users to conduct transactions using their mobile phone carrier bills. Until recently, telecoms allowed users to purchase these products with airtime and subsequently transmit funds abroad, classifying such transactions as payments for IT-related services.

A fresh data dump is being supplied for free, according to a new claim from BleepingComputer, but this breach is more catastrophic than the last one because it affects over 10 million users this time. This data was afterward allegedly sold on the dark web.

The leak reveals people’s phone numbers, verified statuses, account names, Twitter IDs, bios, and even screen names, according to Chad Loder, the security researcher who broke the story. Loder initially shared this discovery on Twitter, however, he was soon banned from the network for allegedly disclosing this information. He has since migrated to Mastodon and re-posted his findings.

Loder stated that he had recently learned of a Twitter data breach involving millions of accounts in the EU and the US. He called one of the victim’s phone numbers and discovered that the leak was true. According to Bleeping Computer, who examined over 1.3 million phone numbers from France to confirm the breach, this incident occurred no later than 2021.

We’ll have to wait and see how Twitter handles this situation, as they have yet to issue an official statement on the subject.

Message Yourself allows you to send messages to yourself, as the name suggests. The messages in this conversation with yourself are exclusively for your eyes, but otherwise, it functions just like any other chat. This can be used to communicate files, documents, links, etc. between different devices or to save essential information for later use.

Message Yourself, as the name suggests, allows you to send messages to yourself. This chat with oneself will function similarly to any other ordinary chat, with the exception that the messages will only be visible to you. You can use this to save essential information for later or to transfer files, documents, links, and other data between devices.

WhatsApp has been testing this functionality since October when it was first made available in beta form. Other systems, such as Telegram and Slack, have had it since the beginning. People have previously worked around its absence by eliminating other people from a group to create a private conversation for themselves, but the process should be much faster now.

Because the deployment is still in progress, the functionality is not yet available to all users at the time of writing. It hasn’t arrived in Pakistan, at least not yet, according to the Harcheez in Islamabad.

More Features on the Way

In related news, WhatsApp is currently working on a number of new small features. Some of these are already available in the beta version for some users, implying that they will be available in the live version soon.

One of these would be a minor change to group conversations in which participants’ profile images will be visible next to their messages in the chat. Soon, the app will allow you to forward messages and media with captions.

The top 6 websites in Pakistan did not change in October from September, according to digital analytics firm Similar Web. Google, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter were among the most popular names as usual.

However, all of the names down to number 10 changed positions from September to October after the top 6. LinkedIn lost its place to Netflix by moving down one slot to number 8, as Netflix now occupies the top spot. The Pakistani domain name for Google Search, google.com.pk, advanced one tank and rose to position 9.

The freelancing website Fiver had a rough month in October in Pakistan as it slipped three places and to the bottom of the list.

Does it differ from Pakistan to other countries?

The top 3 names are the same everywhere when compared to their global rankings. The top 3 websites on the internet are Google, YouTube, and Facebook, while WhatsApp is well down the list globally. Although it is ranked fourth in Pakistan, it is ranked 23rd worldwide.

Outside of Pakistan, Instagram doesn’t move, however, Twitter jumps from position 6 to position 4. Additionally, Netflix receives a substantially lower grade throughout the rest of the world. It falls from Pakistan’s position 7 to position 22.

The same is true for LinkedIn, whose global ranking is far lower than Pakistan’s, which is at number 18. (down from 8). However, when you compare its stats to the rest of the list, Fiver experiences the highest decline. It doesn’t even place among the top 500 globally.

Google.com.pk has a ranking on a worldwide scale as well. It is currently ranked 4680 globally. Maybe there are a few sporadic VPN users to blame.

A Twitter poll in which Musk questioned whether or not the social network should reinstate suspended accounts led to the story. A survey revealed:

Should Twitter grant all suspended accounts a general amnesty if they haven’t violated the law or sent outrageous amounts of spam?

More than 3 million people participated in the survey, and 72.4% supported the reform. Then Musk said, “Amnesty starts next week.” A request for a response from the Twitter CEO has not yet been answered.

According to experts, restoring banned accounts for violations including making violent threats, harassing people, and spreading false information will greatly influence Twitter. Many others also questioned Musk’s strategy, particularly in light of the fact that he did not define the phrase “egregious spam”. Not to mention how difficult it is to discern between those who have “violated the law” and those who have been blacklisted.

Even the clinical instructor at Harvard Law’s cyberlaw clinic, Alejandra Caraballo, referred to it as “opening the gates of hell.”

For many disadvantaged areas, what Musk is doing poses an existential threat. In terms of the mayhem, it will wreak, it’s comparable to unlocking the gates of hell. Directly targeted harassment offenders may retaliate by engaging in doxing, targeted harassment, cruel bullying, demands for violence, and celebrations of violence. The level of risk here is beyond description.

We won’t know the outcome of Twitter’s dilemma until the following week.

According to a recent claim from Korean media outlet ET News, the Apple Emergency SOS feature on the iPhone 14, which utilizes satellite communication through a collaboration with Globalstar, may soon be available on Samsung Galaxy phones. When you don’t have internet or a cellphone connection, the emergency communication option enables you to contact authorities via SOS messages.

The Galaxy S23 series will reportedly get satellite communication thanks to a partnership between Iridium and Samsung.

For the past two years, Samsung has apparently worked to overcome the technological obstacles preventing the integration of satellite communication into cell phones, and it now seems that it has succeeded. It is rumored that you will be able to send text messages and tiny photos (of hundreds of kilobytes) through satellite with the release of the Galaxy S23 series.

The difficulty lay in getting the antenna small enough to fit into a typical smartphone without making it twice as big as a specialist satellite phone, which typically has enormous antennas.

Samsung doesn’t anticipate the functionality to catch on in its own country because Korea has a tiny geographical area and is well-served by 5G services. However, it is anticipated to be especially well-liked in North and South America, Europe, Russia, and China, especially in those regions with poor infrastructure.

A higher-binned variant of Qualcomm’s newly released Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor will purportedly power the Galaxy S23 series, and the launch is supposedly planned for the first week of February.

Remember that Samsung has not yet confirmed anything, therefore we advise treating this information with caution as it is solely based on leaks.

Today in Islamabad, Federal Minister of IT and Telecom Syed Amin Ul Haque unveiled the “Smartphone For All” concept, which would enable people with low incomes to obtain mobile phones through straightforward payments.

The GSMA and KistPay, the supplier of installment payments in Pakistan with the fastest growth, joined together to launch the initiative.

Along with Amin Ul Haq, Julian Gorman, the GSMA’s Head of Asia Pacific, also spoke at the occasion. Asif Jafri, the CEO of KistPay, Janet White, the head of policy, Major General (R) Aamir Azeem Bajwa, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), CEOs of Ufone, Jazz, Telenor, and Special Communication Organization (SCO), among others, were all present at the opening ceremony.

In order to assist an additional 50 million people in making the switch to mobile broadband over the following three years, Asif Aziz, CCO Jazz, recommended that the government stop the import and local production of 2G phones, give priority to the local assembly of 4G-enabled smartphones, develop and implement a regulatory framework that permits telecom companies to offer smartphones on installments, and reduce the withholding tax on essential telecom services from 15% to 8%. This will hasten the adoption of digital technology and significantly increase the socioeconomic possibilities available to the common populace.

During remarks at the ceremony, Amin Ul Haq, a federal minister, said that anybody can join the program and get a mobile phone by paying 20 to 30 percent of the entire cost of the item. He said that the purchase could be closed with just the ID card, without the need for any guarantees or significant paperwork.

He stated that the initial delivery of phones costing between 10,000 and 100,000 rupees will occur over a three to twelve-month period. The devices, which won’t cost any money and won’t be used anywhere else in the world, will make use of contemporary software.

According to Amin Ul Haq, the strategy aims to improve phone accessibility for the general public while also introducing small businesses to e-commerce as a way to capitalize on the potential of the sector.

The program has been put in place, the minister stated, to ensure that cell phones with better connections are readily available. More than 70 projects, costing a total of Rs. 65 billion, are now under construction to provide connection over the whole country.