Instaphone was

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

's first mobile communication service. It was launched by M/s Pakcom Ltd., a

telecommunications company A telecommunications company is a kind of electronic communications service provider, more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many t ...

and the industry pioneer in the country. The company was jointly owned by M/s Arfeen and Millicom International (Luxembourg) and was acquired in its entirety by the Arfeen Group later.

History

In 1989, the

Government of Pakistan The Government of Pakistan () (abbreviated as GoP), constitutionally known as the Federal Government, commonly known as the Centre, is the national authority of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a federal republic located in South Asia, con ...

awarded licences to mobile operators. M/s Pakcom Ltd. and M/s Paktel Ltd. won the bids and were granted 15-year licences. A third company (M/s Pakistan Mobile Telecommunication Ltd) was among the competitors, but did not meet the bid requirements. The two companies raced to launch their cellular service and "Instaphone" won the race by a few weeks, when it launched its service on 16 October 1990 with 3 Radio Base Stations. Services were offered in Islamabad the following month. The cellular mobile exchange of both operators used

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

model AXE-10. Services at Peshawar were started in April 1991 as a satellite of the Islamabad exchange, linked via PTCL network. Quetta service began as a satellite of the Karachi exchange (linked via

PTCL Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd., commonly known as PTCL, is the national telecommunication company in Pakistan.Pakistan Telecommunication Authority The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) () is the telecommunication regulator of Pakistan, responsible for the establishment, operation and maintenance of telecommunication systems and the provision of telecommunication services in Pakis ...

in January 2008 for unpaid license renewal fees totalling $291 million. Instaphone appealed the decision and filed a petition challenging the national Mobile Cellular Policy of 2004. Both actions were dismissed by the

Islamabad High Court The Islamabad High Court (IHC) is the senior court of the Islamabad Capital Territory, Pakistan, with appellate jurisdiction over the following District courts of Pakistan, district courts: * Islamabad District Court (East) * Islamabad Distr ...

on April 14, 2009. The court extended the deadline for payment of the outstanding license fees to 6 May 2009. Instaphone eventually declared bankruptcy.

Market share

Before the company's license was canceled, It was ranked at the bottom in terms of market share.

Technology migration strategy

Instaphone had a unique migration strategy between

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...

service in the 1980s to the digital

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

network. Due to a lack of telephone number porting laws in Pakistan, Instaphone kept a large TDMA network from the 1990s up until the middle of the 2000s. Due to this rare TDMA presence, Pakistan was flooded with unlocked American and Canadian TDMA cellphones for Instaphone customers who were mostly business users at the time and needed to keep their established telephone numbers.

TDMA grey market phones

Many North American standard TDMA phones showed up in

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

en route to Pakistan, usually bonded by third parties who kept satellite offices there. The majority of these North American phones were sold on the

grey market A grey market or dark market (sometimes confused with the similar term "parallel import, parallel market") is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorised by the original manufacturer or trademark proprietor. ...

allegedly laundering money for the

Indian mafia Organised crime in India refers to organised crime elements originating in India and active in many parts of the world. The purpose of organised crime in India, as elsewhere in the world, is monetary gain. Its virulent form in modern times is d ...

. Hundreds of Pakistani immigrants across North America tried to take part in this opportunity and many lost their life savings over fraudulent letters of credit. The average shipment was approximately $30,000 USD of cellphones.

References

External links