Phones in Pakistan

by The Shepherd

On a recent trip abroad, I was able to look up some of the recent developments that Pakistan has made recently in the area of telephone technology.

Back in 1979, most phones in Karachi consisted of five-digits.  Then six-digits were introduced around 1980 and lately they have begun to use seven-digit telephone numbers.  Various parts of Karachi have six-digit numbers and others have seven-digit numbers and it varies by density.

According to CCITT (the French acronym for "The International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee," located in Geneva and responsible for setting standards), this is known as a "Non Uniform" system, because some service areas have both six- and seven-digit subscriber codes.

"Uniform Systems" are where all the local subscribers have six- or seven-digits across the board.  That is, the length of digits in a given area is the same, as we have in the United States.

In Pakistan they have what they call "long distance codes" or "trunk codes" which are the equivalent of our area codes.  They usually consist of a two-digit city code with a preceding "0" (zero) for toll access.  For example, to dial from Karachi to Multan, a small town in Punjab, one has to dial 061-XXXXXX to get the number.

As late as 1983, the wait to get a telephone through regular channels used to be about five to seven years.  That all has changed.  The wait is "officially" no more than 48 hours, but usually takes a few weeks to get a new phone, still pretty good considering what it used to be.

Karachi is also in the process of getting its first "digital exchange" installed and running.  It's located in Phase 8 of the Defense Housing Society, an upscale area of Karachi.  I have been inside the building and only saw a few computer terminals and a large room with a huge switching exchange.  Other areas were still in the process of being finished and not much was visible.

Most business here is still done through files and paperwork and not much has been computerized although the promise is on the horizon.  I went in there with a friend to take care of some problematic billing and saw them reach into large dusty closets to look for old forms that had the required information.  The "digital exchange" promise is a few years away.

I managed to get a few old bills from my friend who lives in Phase 5 of the Defense Housing Society.  The six-digit subscriber number, under "Telephone No." is followed by some sort of designation code.  Also, they seem to be using some sort of meter reading for the number of calls made, where each click is one call.

For reference, there are about 30 rupees to an American dollar and 100 paisas in a rupee.

There are codes explained on the back of the bill, but that still does not explain some of the codes under "Remarks" on the bills.  The "013" designation is for the "Clifton" exchange which currently serves the entire Clifton and Defense Society area, until the new digital exchange is up and running.

The Pakistan Telephone and Telegraph has a rule whereby all the lines going into a private house are disconnected even if one of the bills for one of those lines is overdue.  Thus my friend's house, which has three lines, was threatened with disconnection even though one of the bills was slightly overdue.  He also told me that he has to regularly pay bakhshish to the local lineman to keep his phone in working order.  Once when I was visiting him, he even got a call from the exchange to remind him that his latest installment of bakhshish was late.

Payphones were introduced to Pakistan just a few years ago and have become quite popular.  There are two kinds of payphones that one can find in Pakistan.  TeleCard is the main one.  TeleCard is in cooperation with Habib Bank, the largest and most important bank in Pakistan.  The other company is called Telecom Foundation.  They both exclusively work on phone cards.  Phone cards for both kinds of services can be bought at various places.

Many small stores and supermarkets sell them at a substantial discount.  These stores selling the cards are marked by a large "TeleCard Sold Here" sign.  They're sold in increments of units.  A TeleCard with 30 units costs about rupees 100 (about US$3.50).  Telecom Foundation cards usually consist of 25 units and sell for about rupees 80 (about US$2.60).

There are TeleCard representatives at all major airports that hang out by the telephones and teach people how to use them as well as sell the cards.  I encountered one at three in the morning at an otherwise completely empty airport.  TeleCard is serious about being the dominant phone card company in Pakistan.

Payphones can only be found in the most affluent of the areas in the larger cities such as Karachi and Islamabad.  The locations of the TeleCard phones are marked by large yellow signs at major intersections pointing out the direction of the nearest phone booths.

The card payphones are notoriously clunky.  (They all seem European makes to me.)  It takes many minutes just to be able to dial a simple number into them and one has to try many times to get through to a local number.  While dialing, one hears the DTMF tones followed by the pulse-clinks.  Many times the pulses are heard and then after a few clicks there is silence.

One can read the units being used up on the TeleCard phones by watching them go downward on the LCD display on the telephone.  The TeleCard phone cards have a visible chip implanted on the front, that is responsible for keeping track of the units.  In the Telecom Foundation card, there are markings that appear on the strip on the front which gives one an idea of how many units are left.

There also seems to be some kind of "anti-hacking" function built into these phones which keeps the microphone turned off until the phone on the other end has started to ring.  Even then sometimes you have to press a volume-up button on the phone booth to get the microphone working.

However, the real development in telephone technology in Pakistan has been in the area of cellular service.  There has been a literal boom in the ownership and usage of cellular phones in the major cities of Pakistan.  It is possible to drive through Karachi's affluent Clifton area and see people standing around on the sidewalks etc., talking on their cellular telephones.  The only company I saw for cellular technology was called Instaphone and was owned by Schlumberger Technologies.  Schlumberger is a German company and also is involved with the TeleCard technology.

The International Country Code (ICC) for Pakistan is 92 and the city code for Karachi is 21.

The following books were used for writing this article:

Signaling in Telecommunications Networks by Samuel Welch  (Second Edition)

Telecommunications System Engineering by Roger L. Freeman