Olivier Laurus, Country Manager, Alcatel-Lucent Pakistan

Alcatel-Lucent Committed to Pakistan's Broadband Market

Oliver Laurus is Alcatel-Lucent's new country manager and replaces Sid Taylor who has returned to the US. So we managed to catch Olivier at lunch to congratulate him on his elevated position. He was overlooking Commercial Operations before being made Country head.

Alcatel-Lucent is committed to the Pakistan market. Having just signed an MoU with Mobilink for depolyment of Wimax in Pakistan, Alcatel-Lucent also powers Micronet Broadband's as well as Nayatel's FTTU Access networks.

Commercial Wimax deployments in the Pakistan market from Mobilink (powered by Alcatel-Lucent) and Wateen (powered by Motorola) will take off in the next six to eight months. Wimax does not require the PTCL Local Loop. So Mobilink and Wateen will be able to deliver services bypassing the PTCL last mile infrastructure that haunts the DSL service providers. (PTCL haunts them, that is :-) )

Wimax will mainly target Home DSL market customers using 256Kbps or 512Kbps volume-based services from DSL Service Providers. Mobilink and Wateen would also like to grab some of the PTCL fixed-line telephony customers. The Wimax CPEs provide POTS interface as well. However, Wimax will not be able to provide high quality Television. Corporate Customers requiring high-bandwidth circuits (typically 10Mbps and above) are likely to stick with FTTU.

Mobilink and Wateen both are in a position to bundle the Wimax with their existing Cellular services in order to come up with Attractive packages for the customer. Both are also expected to heavily subsidize the Wimax CPE cost to the customer. I expect the Wimax installation cost (including the CPE) to be in the 100 usd - 150 usd range. They are unlikely to give unlimited internet packages since the cost for Internet bandwidth is still a bit expensive in this part of the world with an STM-4 (622Mbps) costing around 70,000 usd per month.

PTCL meanwhile will continue switching it's traditional telephony service to the new ZTE ONUs ensuring that no DSL operater will be able to provide services to its customers (sick!). So Wimax will be a boon for Internet users requiring upto a Megabit of bandwidth.

The Wimax CPEs provided by Wateen and Mobilink in the first phase would be fixed i.e. the terminals won't be mobile. So, if you get the CPE installed at home, you cannot take it with you across the city.

Interesting times ahead i guess. By end 2008-9, Wimax might shrink the DSL user base. It depends on how well the Wimax players play their cards. The DSL users would be left probably with only one choice ... the incumbent PTCL. Only the companies with their own Last-Mile infrastructure like Nayatel are expected to be alive in the next round of broadband offerings. Other DSL Players are likely to kick to bucket by then.