Ufone

Last updated
Ufone
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Telecommunication
Founded29 January 2001;23 years ago (2001-01-29)
HeadquartersUfone Tower, Blue Area, ,
Key people
Hatem Bamatraf GCEO & President
ProductsPre Pay, Post Pay, UPaisa [1]
Parent Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd
Website www.ufone.com

Pak Telecommunication Mobile Limited or Ufone is a Pakistani GSM cellular service provider. It is the third mobile operator to enter Pakistani market. It started its operations under the brand Ufone, in Islamabad on January 29, 2001.

Contents

PTML is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited. Following PTCL's privatization, Ufone became a part of the Etisalat in 2006.

Ufone is the smallest mobile service provider in Pakistan with a subscriber base of 25 million, among which 14 million are 4G/LTE subscribers. [2] It has a market share of 13%, the least among all four mobile operators. [3]

History

The company commenced its operations, under the brand name of Ufone, from Islamabad on January 29, 2001. Gen. Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan had inaugurated the service on that day.

Radio Frequency Summary

FrequencyProtocolBandClassChannel Width
900 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE 82G2.6 MHz / 7.6 MHz
900 MHz UMTS/HSDPA/HSPA+ 83G5 MHz
2100 MHz UMTS/HSDPA/HSPA+ 13G5 MHz
1800 MHz LTE 34G15 MHz

Ufone had bid on a 5 MHz block of 2100 MHz spectrum in the NGMS auction held in early 2014, however due to rising demand and lack of bandwidth to keep up, in December 2016, Ufone decided to re-farm a portion of its 900 MHz 2G network to 3G (HSPA+), and is now offering 3G over both bands to deal with the increasing load on the network.

Ufone has only re-farmed their 900 MHz spectrum in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Abbottabad, Sheikhupura and Sialkot. [4] [5]

PTML Ufone won 2x9 MHz of 1800 MHz in the 2021 NGMS auction held by PTA, bringing its total spectrum in the band up to 15 MHz which will be used for improvement of its existing 4G services. [6]

4G launch

On 9 February 2019, Ufone launched its 4G network in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. It has done so using existing NGMS licenses. Ufone has now expanded its 4G coverage to Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Peshawar, Quetta, Attock, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Digri, Jhuddo, Naukot, Mithi, Pabbi, Multan and Nowshehra with planning to launch 4G in more cities soon. [7]

Voice over LTE (VoLTE)

In October 2023, Ufone announced that it enabled VoLTE across its network, making it the last network in the country to support the service. [8] Supported devices include smartphones from Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi, among others. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

Telecommunications in Pakistan describes the overall environment for the mobile telecommunications, telephone, and Internet markets in Pakistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WiMAX</span> Wireless broadband standard

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options.

United States Cellular Corporation is an American mobile network operator. It is a subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems Inc.. The company was formed in 1983 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. UScellular is the fifth-largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 4,656,000 subscribers in 426 markets in 21 states as of the 2nd quarter of 2023. The organization was previously known as U.S. Cellular.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobilink</span>

Mobilink was the trade name of Pakistan Mobile Communications Limited (PMCL), a mobile operator in Pakistan providing a range of prepaid and postpaid voice and data telecommunication services to both individual and corporate subscribers. In 2017, Warid Pakistan merged with Mobilink to form Jazz, under which the company now operates. Mobilink's head office was in Islamabad, and its last president and CEO was Aamir Ibrahim, who became the CEO of Jazz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pakistan Telecommunication Authority</span> Telecom regulator

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) (Urdu: ‎مقتدرہِ ٹیلی مواصلات پاکستان) is the telecommunication regulator of Pakistan, responsible for the establishment, operation and maintenance of telecommunication systems and the provision of telecommunication services in Pakistan. Headquartered in Islamabad, PTA also has regional offices located in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Muzaffarabad, Rawalpindi, Multan and Gilgit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telenor Pakistan</span> Telephone operator company

Telenor Pakistan (Pvt.) Limited is a Pakistani wireless network operator headquartered in Islamabad, Pakistan. Khurrum Ashfaque is the current chief executive officer (CEO).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PTCL</span> Pakistani telecommunication company

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan. PTCL provides telephone and internet services nationwide and is the backbone for the country's telecommunication infrastructure. The corporation manages and operates around 2000 telephone exchanges across the country, providing the largest fixed-line network. Data and backbone services such as GSM, HSPA+, CDMA, LTE, broadband internet, IPTV, and wholesale are an increasing part of its business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warid Pakistan</span>

Warid was a GSM, HSPA+ and LTE based mobile operator in Pakistan. It was the seventh mobile carrier to enter the Pakistani market. It commenced commercial operations on May 23, 2005 by the Abu Dhabi Group, a business conglomerate in the Middle East and a major investor in Pakistan. It was the first venture of the group in the field of Telecommunication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BSNL Mobile</span> Division of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited

BSNL Mobile is an Indian state-owned telecommunication company of the Government of India. BSNL Mobile operates under the BSNL brand and provides wireless cellular services to B2B, B2C, & B2G segments in India. BSNL Mobile has a pan-India presence with presence in all the 22 telecom circles in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MagtiCom</span> Georgian telecommunications company

MagtiCom, Ltd. is a Georgian telecoms company founded on February 12, 1996 by Dr. George (Gia) Jokhtaberidze. On September 22, 1997 the Company made the first commercial call from its mobile network. The services offered by MagtiCom involve as follows: mobile telephony; mobile internet ; Cable fixed telephony (VoIP); internet television (IPTV) and fiber-optic internet. Since 2016 MagtiCom started to provide IPTV, VoIP and fiber-optic internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zong (mobile network)</span> Pakistani mobile network operator

CMPak Limited, doing business under brand name Zong, is a Pakistan based mobile data network operator, owned by China Mobile.

In telecommunications, 4G is the fourth generation of cell phone mobile communications standards. It is a successor to the third generation (3G) standards. A 4G system provides mobile "ultra-broadband" Internet access. Major Australian telecommunications companies, and most resellers that use one of these major telcos, have been rolling out and continuing to upgrade 4G since 2011/2012.

wi-tribe Pakistani internet provider

wi-tribe was a Pakistani internet service provider that operated in four major cities; Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Karachi until its license was revoked by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority because of frequent service interruption. As of 2021, the services have not been restored. wi-tribe is the first one in Pakistan to launch LTE-Advanced (4.5G) to users.

3G mobile telephony was relatively slow to be adopted globally. In some instances, 3G networks do not use the same radio frequencies as 2G so mobile operators must build entirely new networks and license entirely new frequencies, especially so to achieve high data transmission rates. Other delays were due to the expenses of upgrading transmission hardware, especially for UMTS, whose deployment required the replacement of most broadcast towers. Due to these issues and difficulties with deployment, many carriers delayed acquisition of these updated capabilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Special Communications Organization</span> Pakistani telecommunications organization

The Special Communications Organization (SCO) (Urdu: تنظیم برائے مواصلاتِ مخصوصہ) is Pakistani public sector organization operated by MoIT&T. SCO plays a role in providing telecommunication services in Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan to almost 1.7 million people, a quarter of the total population.

Pakistan's next generation mobile spectrum auction for the electromagnetic spectrum's licenses was held on 23 April 2014 by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Airtel India</span> Indian telecommunications company

Airtel India commonly known as Airtel, is the second largest provider of mobile telephony and third largest provider of fixed telephony in India, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services. The brand is operated by several subsidiaries of Bharti Airtel, with Bharti Hexacom and Bharti Telemedia providing broadband fixed line services and Bharti Infratel providing telecom passive infrastructure service such as telecom equipment and telecom towers. Currently, Airtel provides 5G, 4G and 4G+ services all over India. Currently offered services include fixed-line broadband, and voice services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel had also rolled out its VoLTE technology across all Indian telecom circles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jazz (mobile network operator)</span> Pakistani telecommunications company

Pakistan Mobile Communications Limited (PMCL), doing business as Jazz, (Urdu: جاز) is Pakistan's largest mobile network and internet services provider formed by the merger of Mobilink and Warid Pakistan.

References

  1. "Ufone Call Packages - Hourly, Daily, Weekly & Monthly Packages". Archived from the original on 2017-07-30. Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  2. "Telecom Indicators | PTA". www.pta.gov.pk. Retrieved 2020-01-01.
  3. "Telecommunications: Zong overtakes Ufone as CMOs' market share changes". The Express Tribune. 3 May 2014.
  4. "Ufone Upgrades and Doubles its 3G Network Through Spectrum Refarming". 2017-01-25. Retrieved 2017-10-19.
  5. "Ufone Upgrades its 3G Network in Karachi". 2017-03-30. Retrieved 2017-10-19.
  6. "Press Release". Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. 10 September 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  7. Attaa, Aamir. "Ufone is Going 4G in Pakistan" . Retrieved 2019-02-09.
  8. "Ufone 4G Introduces VoLTE for HD Voice & Video Calling Experience Over 4G Network". ProPakistani. 2023-10-19. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
  9. "Ufone VoLTE - Ufone 4G". Ufone . 2023-10-19. Retrieved 2024-03-07.