PakNet (Internship report) Chapter-4

 Chapter # 4

PAKNET A PTCL COMPANY

Paknet Limited

Introduction

Paknet Limited, a fully owned Subsidiary of PTCL, started its commercial operations on 21^st January 2000. Prior to Paknet, PTCL was running its data communication department under the name of PDN (Public Data Network). In  fact the first text-based Internet services in Pakistan (i.e gopher, FTP, online email, text based chat services etc) were offered by PTCL’ Data services region with the brand name “PDN” in first quarter of 1996, covering major 16 cities of Pakistan. Following the rapidly growing internet demand in Pakistan, PTCL formulated a separate limited company, under the name of Paknet, for the internet business, commencing with operations from Islamabad. These operations were later extended to other cities and the company achieved 50,000 Internet customers in its first year of operations.

Performance:

Currently Paknet has the largest ISP infrastructure reach in the country, with points of presence in 44 locations and internet access availability in over 2000 cities and towns across the country. Such a reach ensures the availability of data services to the country’s growing Internet users as well as the large corporates who have their networks spread across the country. The company offers specific internet packages that are designed to cater for specific segments of the market such as students, games and chat users, heavy dial up users, home user of Broadband and Small to Medium Enterprises. Besides Dial up and DSL Broadband Internet, specific services for corporate users

include Clear Channel data links, Frame Relay and Digital Connectivity on Optical fiber cross connect systems, ISDN, Virtual Private Networks etc. In addition, Paknet also houses 29 Customer Service Centers spread across 22 major cities of the country and a sales and distribution network that spans across the country’s entire geographical landscape. 

 

Internet users as well as the large corporates who have their networks spread across the country.

THE PROMISE

The growth of Internet in Pakistan is attributed to the open competition policy of the government in this sector. There are more than 80 licensed ISPs in Pakistan and within 10 years of internet services in Pakistan, the internet users have been estimated to have grown to over 7 million. An open Broadband policy and the continuous lowering of the bandwidth rates in Pakistan have further fuelled the growth. But despite having the largest reach, historically the company’s unique reach has not been fully capitalized as a competitive advantage. However armed with the recent privatization of PTCL and the take over by Etisalat International Pakistan, new opportunities have opened for PAKNET to capitalize on this asset base and provide unrivaled facilities to its customers. A complete re-optimization and upgrade of the company’s network has now been initiated, with the aim of achieving unparalleled Quality of Service and providing a broad range of state of the art data communication solutions, specially for the quality conscious corporate sector in the country. The new management aims to make Paknet the country’s preferred choice for internet and data connectivity solutions in the 21^st century.

PROJECT OF PAKNET