PTA intends to eradicate hidden service charges

KARACHI: Pakistan Telecomm-unication Authority (PTA) has intended to eradicate all sorts of hidden service charges of the operators, directing them strictly to inform exact services cost and conditions to consumers.

The PTA directives issued under “Telecom Consumer Protection Regulations, 2009” here on Thursday, asked all telecom operators to ensure that consumers know the exact costs for all services prior to purchase. This should be clearly expressed without any false or misleading information, explicitly disclosing the tariff rates, units of charging, and applicable taxes, etc in their advertisements.

The effective tariffs for all services are in accordance with the tariff as mentioned in advertisement, it added.

PTA directed telecom operators not to pre-activate any tariff on consumer, optional in nature, without the consent of consumers.

On billing, it instructed all operators to provide detailed billing information to their consumers in accordance with license terms and conditions, regulations/directives issued by authority, code of commercial practice and service contract as approved by authority.

Regarding service interruption, in case of planned network system enhancement, updates or upgrades, the operators shall give the consumer thirty days prior service interruption notice, telecom watchdog directed.

It further asks the operators shall inform the reasons for the interruption and expected time of restoration of services to the consumers by any SMS, Calls and other means in the case of unforeseen technical interruption/faults.

Operators may withdraw the provision of any service to consumers, provided such withdrawal is approved by the authority and thirty days prior notices is given to consumers.

Subject to prior communication of suspension and disconnection policies to the consumer, an operator may suspend or disconnect rendered services in accordance with their policies.

Operator shall clearly communicate the reasons for suspension/disconnection to the consumer along with the action required on the part of that consumer to avoid such suspension/disconnection.

It also asked that operation shall not suspend or disconnect a service to a consumer on account of which the consumer has paid all the dues, even if the consumer has defaulted in the payment to the operators in relation to some other services.

But they may suspend/disconnect all connections for an individual services to a consumers, which are subscriber by that consumer in his/her own name and the default is not cleared for any one of such connections.

They operator shall not deny access to emergency numbers to a consumers, where the service is suspended for any valid reason.

PTA instructed the operator shall restore services to a consumer within twenty-four hours from when the consumer has taken all remedial steps, to the satisfaction of the operator, in order to rectify the matter resulting in such suspension or disconnection by the operators.

Resource:- Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The next generation cellular services, commonly known as 3G, will be launched in Pakistan this year, an official said yesterday. Federal Secretary for Information Technology and Telecom Hafeezur Rehman said the policy for launching these services has already been submitted to the federal cabinet and after its approval within three to four weeks spectrum will be auctioned.

He said despite the global recession and a worrying security situation the government wants the 3G services to be available for the Pakistani cellular customers.

He said the base price for auction of the spectrum will be decided by the cabinet besides the policy decision whether the existing operators only will be allowed to participate or more international companies will be invited. “The; ministry has also submitted its recommendations op these matters; but the final decision rests with the federal cabinet,” he added.

He said the policy in this regard will not be discriminating for existing companies or new entrants and the base price will also be set keeping in view the international recession and market trends. He said that the 3G services will be provided in a three phase process.

KARACHI: Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) has planned to roll out digital push-to-talk (PTT) network in the country with 800 MHz band spectrums by the next six months considering its high demand for commercial and security purposes, a top official told Daily Times.

The regulatory body will auction band spectrums followed by the allocation of the separate frequency allocations among them. PTA is intending to segregate the spectrum on the basis of frequency bandwidth as well as the geographical area for it’s auctioning, it has been decided.

Digital PTT technology has the potential to bring several benefits to several sectors of Pakistan’s population. Applications of this technology will include all forms of distress signaling, emergency calling, health services, services for fire and security personnel,

Intelligence / border surveillance-type communication and in mainstream businesses perhaps a ready-fit for logistics and transport type operations where an instructor or superintendent is advising instructions to several junior / field staff. In Pakistan frequency bands: 806 – 811MHz and 851-856 MHz have been identified for trunk radio services in the National Frequency Plan. iDEN is one of the few technologies that is capable of providing digital PTT service to various closed-circuit sectors of Pakistan over these bands, it learnt.

Chairman PTA, Dr Muhamamd Yaseen told Daily Times the market would consider every service providers of the digital PTT system as the authority will provide equal opportunity to every player.

He said some of the cellular phone companies have shown keen interest in introducing digital PTT services through their existing wide-base network, however, he said the authority will also include separate independent PTT operators in the race to make competitive market of this technology, aiming to thrive this facility as soon as possible in country.

Currently, the PTA has taken initiatives to acquire industry feedback on the regulatory framework to be adopted for licensing of digital PTT service in Pakistan, he added. PTA chief told the digital systems will be catering to the internal needs of private companies and organisations and enhance new business opportunities in the telecom sector.

In order to bridge this gap between legacy analogue private mobile systems and modern digital public land mobile systems such as GSM, UMTS etc. a new genre of technologies have been developed that can serve the needs of closed circuit Radio users. These technologies include TETRA(Europe), iDEN (USA and Canada), IDRA (Japan), TETRAPOL and Project 25. However, in Pakistan, the private mobile radio is still being used by closed circuit users such as public safety organizations, industrial firms, transportation & security organizations etc.

According to Statistics there are about 47.65 million employed industrial workers in Pakistan as estimated in 2006-07. A good majority of these workers are associated with agriculture, forestry, fishing industry, security organisations, factories, refineries, construction, and transport related businesses. All of these businesses rely heavily on private mobile radios in VHF band for carrying out their dispatch related activities, and hence, are potential users of digital PTT system.

Industry people were of the view the Push-to-Talk digital services will prove to be another milestone in the most competitive and advance telecom sector of the country. They forecast that the advance digital communication system will also attract foreign services operators in the country and the inflow of Foreign Direct Investment will increase in this sector from various countries of the world.

News Resource:- Daily times

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Telecom industry continues to take positive steps towards the development of telecom infrastructure in the country. The massive boom for the mobile phone segment of Telecom industry has provided the momentum for expansion and development in other segments of Telecom as well, especially in the rural areas of Pakistan. The USF (Universal Service Fund) from PTA (Pakistan Telecom Authority) is providing the impetus for development in underserved areas and Wateen’s commitment to alleviating the digital divide between the urban and rural population is always one step ahead of its competition to meet such challenges. An Optical Fiber network spanning more than 10,000 km across all the four provinces of Pakistan supported by the largest country wide WiMAX broadband network and the biggest satellite services client base, Wateen was a natural choice to support such initiatives from USF. It is akin to Wateen’s vision to contribute towards the development of our great country, since Wateen’s corporate culture is to value people, more than products or profits. With this spirit, Wateen participated in the USF bidding process and was awarded the contract for

In networking, the term topology is the way of connecting computers or nodes on a network. There are many ways in which computers are connected together in a computer network. Therefore network topology is defined as: the schemes of joining a number of computers in the form of a network are called Network Topologies.

We know that two or more devices are connected to a link for data communication. Similarly, two or more links form a topology. The topology of a network is the geometric representation of the relationship of all the links and the nodes (communication devices) to one another.

There are three commonly used network topologies. These are:

1. Star topology
2. Ring topology
3. Bus topology

1. Star Topology

In a star network, each node (computer or other device) is directly connected to the central computer or Hub that provides connection points for nodes on the network. The star topology is the most common topology in use today. In star network, information or data is communicated from one computer to another through Hub. This form of network configuration looks like a star as shown in figure below.

Advantages

The main advantages of star topology are:

• It is easy to install and to maintain.
• You can easily add and remove nodes to and from the network without affecting the network.
• If any node fails, other nodes are not affected.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantages of star topology are:

• This type of network depends upon the central Hub. If Hub fails the entire network is failed.
• Each computer is directly connected to the Hub through a cable, so it becomes more costly.

2. Ring Topology

In ring network, each node is connected to two adjacent nodes in the form a closed ring or loop. In ring topology, the last node connects to the first node to complete the ring. In ring topology, each node has a dedicated point-to-point connection only with the two devices on either side of it.

In this network, data is communicated in one direction from node to node around the entire ring. When a computer in ring network sends message to another computer on the network, the message travels to each node or computer until it reaches its destination. The ring network configuration is shown in figure below.

Advantages

The main advantages of ring topology are:

It is less expensive than star topology. Nodes can be easily added or removed.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantages of ring topology are:

It is more difficult to install and maintain.  If a node fails, it affects the entire network. 

3. Bus Topology

In bus network, all nodes are connected to a common communication medium or central cable. The central physical cable that connects the nodes is called Bus. The data is communicated between nodes in both directions through bus. A bus topology uses the multipoint connection. The central single cable (or bus) acts as backbone to link all the devices to the network.

In bus network, when a computer sends a message to another computer it also attaches the address of the destination computer. In bus topology, a special device called a terminator is attached at the cable’s start and end points. A terminator stops the network signals.

In LAN, bus topology is mostly used. In this topology, each computer is assigned a unique address. The bus network configuration is given in figure image.

Advantages

The main advantages of bus topology are:

• It is less expensive and easy to install and maintain.
• When nodes are added and removed to and from the network, the network is not affected.
• If one node fails other nodes are not affected.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantages of bus topology are:

• It supports only a small number of nodes.
• Entire network fails if there is any problem in the central cable.

Mesh Topoloy

In this topology, every node has a dedicated point-to-point connection to every other node on the network. A fully connected mesh network has n(n-1)/2 channels to link ‘n’ devices. Therefore, every device on the network must have ‘n-1′ input/output (I/O) ports.

In mesh network, each node is directly connected to all nodes on the network. This type of network involves the concept of routes. In this type of network, each node may send message to destination through multiple paths. It means that each node of mesh network has several possible paths to send (or to receive) message, but in Bus, Star, Ring and Tree topologies each node has only one path.

Advantages

Mesh topology has the following advantages:

• It has multiple links, so if one route is blocked then other routes can be used for data communication.
• Each connection can have its own data load, so the traffic problem is eliminated.
• It ensures the data privacy or security, because every message travels along a dedicated link.
• Troubleshooting of this topology is easy as compared to other networks.
• Its performance is not affected with heavy load of data transmission.

Disadvantages

Mesh topology has the following disadvantages:

• It becomes very expensive because a large number of cabling and 110 ports are required.
• It is difficult to install.

Tree Topology

In tree network, the nodes are connected to each other in such a way that forms a tree like structure. Typically to form a tree network, multiple star topologies are combined together. This type of network has combined features of bus and star topology.

On tree topology the hubs of each star topology are connected to the central h

ub that controls the entire network. However, some nodes can be directly connected to the central hub. The tree topology configuration is shown in figure below.

The central Hub in the tree network is an active hub. It contains a repeater (a hardware device), which re-generates the received bit patterns. The secondary hubs usually are passive hubs. The passive hub controls the nodes directly connected to it and exchange data to other devices connected to the other secondary hubs (or same hub) through the central hub. The secondary hub may also be active hub if another secondary hub is directly connected to it. The cable TV network is an example of tree topology, where main cable is divided into, branches and each branch is further divided into smaller branches and so on. The hub is used when a branch is created. 

Advantages

The tree topology has the same advantages as star topology but it has some additional advantages. These are.

• It allows more devices to be connected to the central Hub.

Disadvantages

The tree topology also has the same disadvantages as star topology built has some additional disadvantages such as:

• It because more expansive because more hubs are required to install the network.

Hybrid Topology

Hybrid network is the combination of different topologies such as star, Ring, Mesh, Bus etc. For example, if a department uses a Bus network, second department uses the ring network, third department uses the Mesh network and fourth department uses the star network. All the networks of different types (of four departments) can be connected together through a central hub (in the form of star network) as shown in the figure below.

The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the world-wide telephone system and usually this network system uses the digital technology. In the past, it was used for voice communication only but now it is playing very important role for data communication in the computer network such as in the Internet. There are different types of telephone lines that are used for data communication in the network. These are discussed below.

1. Dial-Up Lines

It is a temporary connection that uses one or more analog telephone lines for communication. Modem is used at the sending end as well as at the receiving end. A telephone number is dialed from the sending end through modem and the modem at the receiving end answers the call. In this way, connection is established for data communication between computers or electronic devices. In dial up line connection, the cost of data communication is very low. The mobile users can also access the Internet through this connection.

2. Dedicated Lines

It is a permanent connection that is used to establish connection between two devices permanently. It is better than dial-up line connection because dedicated lines provide a constant connection. These types of connections may be digital or analog. The data transmission speed, of digital lines is very fast as compare to analog dedicated line. The data transmission speed is also measured in bits per second (bps). In dial-up and dedicated lines, it is up to 56 Kbps. The dedicated lines are mostly used for business purposes. The most important digital dedicated lines are described below.

1) ISDN Lines

ISDN stands for Integrated Services Digital Network. It is a set of standards used for digital transmission over telephone line. The ISDN uses the multiplexing technique to carry three or more data signals at once through the telephone line. It is because the data transmission speed of ISDN line is very fast. In ISDN line, both ends of connections require the ISDN modem and a special telephone set for voice communication. Its data transmission speed is up to 128 Kbps.

2) DSL

DSL stands for Digital Subscriber Line. It is another digital line. In DSL, both ends of connections require the network cards and DSL modems for data communication. The data transmission speed and other functions are similar as ISDN line. DSL transmits data on existing standard copper telephone wiring. Some DSLs provide a dial tone, which allows both voice an4 data communication.

3) ADSL

The ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is another digital connection. It is faster than DSL. ADSL is much easier to install and provides much faster data transfer rate. Its data transmission speed is from 128 Kbps up to 10 Mbps. This connection is ideal for Internet access.

4) Cable Television Line

The Cable Television (CATV) line is not a standard telephone line. It is a dedicated line used to access the Internet. Its data transmission speed is 128 Kbps to 3 Mbps.

A cable modem is used with the CATV. it provides a high speed Internet connections through the cable television network. A cable modem sends and receives digital data over the cable television network.

To access the Internet using the CATV network, the CATV Company installs a splitter inside your house. From the splitter, one part of the cable runs to your television and other part connects to the cable modem. A cable modem usually is an external device, in which one end of a cable connects to a CATV wall outlet while the other end plugs into a port (such as on an Ethernet card) in the system unit.

5) T-Carrier Lines

It is very fast digital line that can carry multiple signals over a single communication line whereas a standard dialup telephone line carries only one signal. T-carrier lines use multiplexing so that multiple signals share the line. T-carrier lines provide very fast data transfer rates. The T-carrier lines are very expensive and large companies can afford these lines. The most popular T-carrier lines are:

1. TI Line
2. T3 Line

i) T1 Line

The most popular T-carrier line is the Ti line (dedicated line). Its data transmission speed is 1.5 Mbps. Businesses often use Ti lines to connect to the Internet. Many ISPs use Ti, lines to connect to the Internet backbone. Another type of TI line is the fractional TI line. It is slower than TI line but it is less expensive. The home and business users use this line to connect to the Internet and share a connection to the Ti line with other users.

ii) T3 Line

Another most popular and faster T-carrier line is T3 line. Its data transmission speed is 44 Mbps. It is more expensive than Ti line. The main users of T3 line are telephone companies and ISPs. The Internet backbone itself also uses T3 lines.

6) Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)

It is very, fast data transmission connection line that can carry data, voice, video, multimedia etc. Telephone networks, Internet and other network use ATM. In near future, ATM will become the Internet standard for data transmission instead of T3 lines. Its data transmission speed is from 155 Mbps to 600 Mbps.

Computer Networks: Communication Devices

An electronic device that can send and receive data on the network is called the communication device. The communication devices are used on both ends of the connections. Most of the communication devices have the ability to convert the digital signal of computer into analog signal so that the signals can be transmitted on the communication line to another end. The reverse is also true. The most important communication devices are described below.

Modem

Modem stands for Modulator and Demodulator. The modem (dialup modem) is an electronic device that can convert the digital signals into analog signals and analog signals into digital signals. It is used on both ends of the computers for data communication between, computers through telephone line. We knew that data is communicated through telephone line in the form of analog signals. So data in the form of digital signal from one computer must be converted into analog signals before to transmit it to another computer through telephone line. Similarly, to receive the data from another computer through telephone line in the form of analog signals must be converted to digital before to store into the computer. The modem can be external or internal.

The external modem is a separate device that is attached to the computer through RS-232 serial port. It can be easily moved from, one computer to another. It has also many functions but it is very costly.

An internal modem is an expansion card that is installed into the expansion slot on the computer’s motherboard. Most of the computers at home and offices use the internal modem because it is less expensive than external modem. The Fax machine also uses the internal card; it is because internal modem is also known as Fax Card.

Digital Modem

The modem that is used to send and to receive data to and from a digital telephone line is called digital modem. The examples of digital modems are ISDN and DSL. These modems send and receive the digital signals to and from the digital line. This modem does not convert the digital signals into analog because digital lines already use the digital signals. Therefore, in this case he definition of modem confuses the users, however manufacturers still use the term modem for devices used in digital line for data communication.

Network Interface Card

It is also referred to as LAN adapter or simply LAN card. It is used in Local Area Network to establish the communication between the devices (computers, printers and other devices) attached on the network. Usually, the personal computers use the network interface card (NIC) in Local Area Network (LAN). The Ethernet card is the most common type of network interface card. The data transmission speed of Ethernet card is from 10 Mbps to 1,000 Mbps. Some of the network interface cards also, have the combined features of Ethernet card and dialup modem card.

Bridge

It is an electronic device that connects two similar networks and controls the data flow between them. A bridge looks at the information in each packet header and forwards data (that is traveling) from one LRN to another.

Router

An electronic device that connects multiple computers together and transmits data to its correct destination using the available path on the network is called router. It stores the routing information of each node or computer on the network and to use these information to transfer data between nodes. Like a bridge, a router looks at each packet’s header to determine where the packet should go and then determines a route for, the packet to take and thus reach its destination; some routers also have built-in antivirus protection. Similarly, some routers also support wireless communications.

Gateway

A gate is an electronic device that can perform logical function. A gateway is a device or system (collection of hardware and software resources) that connects two networks and translates information from one to the other so that data can be transmitted between two dissimilar networks.

Packets from different networks have different kinds of information in their headers, and information can be of different formats. The gateway can take a packet from one type. of network, read the header, and then encapsulates the entire packet into a new one, adding a header that is understood by the second network.

Repeater

A device, which is used to join same type of networks to extend the length of the communication medium, is called repeater. It also amplifies the signals received from one network and sends the amplified signals to another network.

How to get visitors IP address? If you want to get your web site visitor’s IP address then PHP provides you complete solution for this. I made a function to get IP address of visitor.

<?php
function visitorip() {
    if (getenv(‘HTTP_CLIENT_IP’)) $ip = getenv(‘HTTP_CLIENT_IP’);
    elseif (getenv(‘HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR’))    $ip = getenv(‘HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR’);
    elseif (getenv(‘HTTP_X_FORWARDED’)) $ip = getenv(‘HTTP_X_FORWARDED’);
    elseif (getenv(‘HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR’)) $ip = getenv(‘HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR’);
    elseif (getenv(‘HTTP_FORWARDED’)) $ip = getenv(‘HTTP_FORWARDED’);
    else $ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
    return $ip;
}

echo “Your IP address is “.visitorip();
?>
In result web site visitor’s ip address will appear. In example above i made a function named visitorip() will check all conditions for getting ip and will return ip address. echo command of PHP will receive ip address will display on page.