As broadband users ourselves, we are aware of the issues consumers have to deal with. The major ones being not getting the promised speeds for your broadband connection and areas with spotty coverage. PTA seems to be aware of such issues and is planning to launch its own speed testing application for Android platform while an iOS version might be coming out in the near future.

The reason  PTA has decided to implement a speed testing solution of its own is because there is no standards of Quality of service when it comes to broadband internet in Pakistan. Hence there is a strong need to regulate and monitor Broadband companies and their performance as some users get highly variable speeds in different parts of the city. Broadband providers have their own servers on Speedtest.net, however they don’t share the statistics and analytics that they get when users check their broadband speeds. This initiative will help to make sure that the provider is delivering on its promise and consumers are satisfied in all areas with respect to all variables in play, PTA has decided to crowdsource speed testing data by launching its own app which will collect internet metrics from users and report geolocation as well. Thus any coverage or speed issues in a certain area can be pointed out as well as the promised speeds by the broadband provider can be audited by an independent authority to make sure that everything is in check. In the future if PTA makes this data public then users can get to know that which areas get better reception and thus make a smart decision about which provider to choose. Hopefully this new implementation will work in the consumer’s favour and people will enjoy better quality broadband services in Pakistan.

This app is currently in its pilot program with a limited number of users and would be launched properly after the required results start to come out. Are you happy with your internet provider? Do you think this new app will regulate service quality in a much better way? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Khurram Zahid

The post PTA to Launch Speed Testing Mobile App! appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

What is an Exchange Point?
Now let’s give you an overview of what an Internet Exchange Point is and what does it do. An Internet Exchange Point (IXP or IX) is a physical infrastructure through which Internet service providers (ISPs) and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) exchange Internet traffic between their networks (autonomous systems). The primary purpose of an IXP is to allow networks to interconnect directly, via the exchange, rather than through one or more third-party networks. For example if you are using a local ISP and if a ping is sent for a website/server that is hosted on TransWorld for example, then traffic is routed through international exchanges that reside outside Pakistan. This traffic will now be routed within our local Internet Exchange after it’s set up.

Now that we have given our readers a brief introduction on the purpose and working of an IXP, you must be wondering that what advantage do you as a user can get by this? Well to mention the major merits of having an Internet Exchange Point are two-fold as not just the end-user but the ISPs can also benefit from this as mentioned under:

Benefits of an Internet Exchange:

* Reduction in costs for the ISPs.
* Lower Latency which in turn means lower Ping times and faster response times leading to better user experience.
* Local content development and hosting opportunities.
* Development of local cloud based infrastructures.
* Improved security and stability.
* Availability of services in case of disruption in international bandwidth.
* Attraction for international companies to create local images of their servers in Pakistan.

We hope that this latest initiative will boost the Quality of Service by all ISPs and in turn benefit the users along with creating new jobs and boosting economy in the process. What are your thoughts about this? Have your say in the comments section below!

Khurram Zahid

The post Internet Exchange Point to offer Better Quality Internet in Pakistan! appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

The reason this thing is so vital to us is that even after a global spread of internet, some remote areas that lack the resources and infrastructure to deploy typically available internet solutions can now have internet without any major investment as the infrastructure/hardware needed to implement this newly devised solution is already in place. Almost 4 billion people that currently don’t have resources to access the internet can benefit from this. Using off-the-shelf LEDs and solar cells, Harald Haas and his team have pioneered a new technology that transmits data using light, and it may just be the key to bridging the digital divide. Read on to find out more about what the future of the Internet could look like.

Imagine using your car headlights to transmit data or surfing the web safely on a plane, tethered only by a line of sight. Harald Haas is working on it. He currently holds the Chair of Mobile Communications at the University of Edinburgh, and is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of pureLiFi Ltd as well as the Director of the LiFi Research and Development Center at the University of Edinburgh.

Haas has long been studying ways to communicate electronic data signals, designing modulation techniques that pack more data onto existing networks. But his latest work leaps beyond wires and radio waves to transmit data via an LED bulb that glows and darkens faster than the human eye can see. It’s called Li-Fi, an acronym for Light Fidelity and his group has published the first proof-of-concept results demonstrating that it is possible to to turn commercially available light emitting diode (LED) light bulbs into broadband wireless transmission systems. Let’s have a look at how Li-Fi works.

Li-Fi, or Light Fidelity, uses off-the-shelf LEDs to transmit data incredibly fast, and also in a safe and secure manner. Data is transported by the light,encoded in subtle changes of the brightness. If we look around, we have many LEDs around us, so there’s a rich infrastructure of Li-Fi transmitters around us. But so far, we have been using special devices — small photo detectors, to receive the information encoded in the data. I wanted to find a way to also use existing infrastructure to receive data from our Li-Fi lights. And this is why I have been looking into solar cells and solar panels.

A solar cell absorbs light and converts it into electrical energy. This is why we can use a solar cell to charge our mobile phone. But now we need to remember that the data is encoded in subtle changes of the brightness of the LED, so if the incoming light fluctuates, so does the energy harvested from the solar cell. This means we have a principal mechanism in place to receive information from the light and by the solar cell, because the fluctuations of the energy harvested correspond to the data transmitted.

Of course the question is: can we receive very fast and subtle changes of the brightness, such as the ones transmitted by our LED lights? And the answer to that is yes, we can. We have shown in the lab that we can receive up to 50 megabytes per second from a standard, off-the-shelf solar cell. And this is faster than most broadband connections these days.

And you may wonder, what’s the point? And the point is this: There will be a massive extension of the Internet to close the digital divide, and also to allow for what we call “The Internet of Things” — tens of billions of devices connected to the Internet. However such an extension of the Internet can only work if it’s almost energy-neutral. This means we need to use existing infrastructure as much as possible. And this is where the solar cell and the LED come in. It’s also designed to work in all sorts of weather conditions including fog and haze.

What’s really important here is that a solar cell has become a receiver for high-speed wireless signals encoded in light, while it maintains its primary function as an energy-harvesting device. That’s why it is possible to use existing solar cells on the roof of a hut to act as a broadband receiver from a laser station on a close by hill, or indeed, lamp post. And It really doesn’t matter where the beam hits the solar cell. And the same is true for translucent solar cells integrated into windows, solar cells integrated into street furniture, or indeed, solar cells integrated into these billions of devices that will form the Internet of Things. Because simply, we don’t want to charge these devices regularly, or worse, replace the batteries every few months.

For now, it is very much a lab demonstration, a prototype. But Haas and his team are confident that we can take this to market within the next two to three years. And they hope they will be able to contribute to closing the digital divide, and also contribute to connecting all these billions of devices to the Internet. And all of this without causing a massive explosion of energy consumption — because of the solar cells, quite the opposite.

Quite frankly we think that this is a really fascinating as well as useful evolution, more so because of the fact that it doesn’t need any major investment and the existing infrastructure is also already in place, along with the fact that it doesn’t have any impact on the energy consumption. Hence it could prove to be a very successful endeavor in the near future once the technology matures. What do you think? Let us know below!

Khurram Zahid

The post Li-Fi Brings Internet Access to Remote Areas! appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

As per this new policy, customers will have to verify their identity through thumb impression to confirm that the CNIC they are using for activation of their internet connection is legitimate, original and it belongs to them.

As per PTA’s SOP, a customer has to present CNIC at Customer Service Centers of ISPs before making a purchase of a new connection. After which customer will have to record the thumb impression that will be matched with NADRA’s database. Finally the customer will be issued a new active internet connection.

It’s pertinent to mention that this implementation will have its fair share of benefits such as issuance of new connections to verified persons and better accountability of unpaid dues. Thus devices issued to customers can be recovered easily in case of discontinuation of services.

Furthermore, it does come with some challenges as well because there would be a huge influx of reverification subscribers at service centers/franchises, hence the staff would be overloaded during this period. Walk-in customers could be highly affected. Hence ISPs should induct sufficient workforce to deal with the rising number of consumers.

Following implementation timelines have been decided for BVS:

1) Deployment of BVS at Customer Service Centers by Nov, 2015.

2) Deployment of BVS at franchises and retailers by Dec, 2015.

3) Cessation of existing process of verification by Jan, 2016.

4) Re-verification of all existing connections, i.e those sold before implementation of BVS should be done within a time period of 2 months after BVS deployment is completed by Feb, 2016.

Khurram Zahid

The post Biometric Verification Now Required For Broadband Internet Connections appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

How to use it.
Once you enter the desired URL and click Browse History button, you are presented with a page that displays available screenshots over the course of years. It also displays the no. of screenshots that the Wayback Machine has saved time to time. Then you can select and view any available screenshot. In addition to just browsing how the website looked in past, you can also use it effectively if you are buying a running website or used domain name. Wayback Machine by Internet Archive also supports different APIs that can be used to retrieve desired information.

Check out Wayback Machine

How these Websites looked 5 years ago?

Below we have shared web page screenshots that display how these famous websites looked like 5 years ago.

Google

Google homepage has not changed much in terms of design. They still have the same looking homepage with fewer controls but better graphics and functionality.

Yahoo

Today Yahoo looks much different from that of 5 years ago. Just from a simple page with different links, they have moved to a crowded website homepage with links to services, top stories, weather reports and of course a search bar.

Amazon

Even 5 years ago Amazo looked pretty good. No doubt clear navigation is a must for E-Commerce websites. With the passage of time they have introduced better navigation using related images instead of simple text links.

Apple

Apple website has not much changed over the time. The homepage provides clear navigation for all of the Apple products. You can browse any product for detailed information, check sitemap or simply land on contact page.

Ebay

Same like Amazon, Ebay also has modified their homepage with on going web trends. They have replaced the simple text links with related images and short description.

These were the screenshots that showed how these websites looked 5 years ago. You can also use the Wayback Machine to check how your favorite websites looked in the past. No doubt Internet Archive is doing a great job to save the history of internet that is freely available for anyone to explore.

Khurram Zahid

The post Want to see how a website looked 5 years ago? appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

Every other website you visit now be it social media, news, application and etc. ask you to sign up and give out personal details before you can use it after a certain point. However doing this randomly and not keeping track of your online activities can be really problematic. One such way you can be in trouble is when websites fall victim to hackers, with that all your personal details are also compromised if registered on that website. Hence it is advised to delete your account from website and platform which you no longer use or seems to have weak security measures in place.

Tip: Never use same password on different accounts, if only one website is compromised, the hacker then has the key to your accounts and other websites which can be very painful to recover.

Deleting your accounts on multiple websites can be a tedious task to figure out how and where you can do this. Guess what, we have found a simpler and easier way to do this through Account killer. This sites has aggregated the procedure and process to close down accounts from different websites like Skype, MSN messenger, linkedin, dropbox, itunes and over 100 other sites, hence made the whole process very simple.

Click here to delete your account online

Account killer, lists websites in different categories popular, blacklist, whitelist and also in alphabetical order. This website is a great asset as it also list the websites that makes it difficult to delete and remove your personal information. For such websites, they try to find a way round to request for account removal or have a general tip that can be very useful.

Moreover, they also have a tool that can be simply installed in your browser or iphone which you can use to check whether you can delete an account if you register. So next time when you register for a service you aren’t sure you’ll use, make sure to visit account killer to check

Sibtain Jiwani

smartchoice.pk

The post Easy way to delete your data from hundreds of website appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

The ultimate goal of Internet of Things is to connect everything with the internet that is identifiable through a unique Internet Protocol address.

Smart Applications

Today we have Smartphones, smart cars and other smart apps all around us. The term smart refers to an object that can describe its possible interactions without any human interaction. Smart applications cover a vast area of development. Such smart applications may learn user preferences and make recommendations next time based on those preferences and personal choices. Smart applications also have the ability to take decisions based on different scenarios. This concept is generally known as Artificial Intelligence. Smart applications tend to automate the tasks and facilitate user actions. These days we can see several applications around us that allow us to do more with less hassle. You can search different things through voice. Apps can recommend you comments based on the statuses of your Facebook friends. You can also control physical devices via applications in your Smartphones. We also have remote control gadgets around us that can be used to turn on and off a device and set the preferences. However, this situation leads us to a problem known as Basket of Remotes problems because we will have a separate app to operate any individual device. The proposed solution to Basket of Remotes problem is to have a shared protocol for apps to interact with each other.

Future of Smart Applications

Most of us already have been using applications that are highly productive and automated. At the moment they may not be thought of as real smart applications but still they offer a notable set of features that reflect an early image of future of smart applications. Below you will find a little description of some applications that portrays the learning, automation, productivity and easiness.

EasilyDo is an iOS app that suggests you something via notification and does it for you once you ask it to do. It adds and manages your contacts automatically avoiding duplicate contacts. It can auto send the birthday wishes via email or Facebook. It gets you directions when it’s time for your meeting.

FieldTrip is an application by Google Inc. available for Android as well as iOS. It is a location aware app that buzz your phone to inform about interesting things nearby. It finds out your location and display interesting information about the location retrieved via different online resources.

Consider a case related to a Sleep Apnea disorder. This disorder is explained as person stops breathing while sleeping. Phillips proposed an idea of CRAP therapy that will monitor the breathing of patient and transmit the information to a web based Patient management system.

Considering such examples we can really peek into the future of smart applications where apps will make real time decisions based on Artificial Intelligence. Such apps will learn from the human choices and will transmit the data to required destination productively. No doubt Internet of Things will bring us a completely smart life soon where doors will auto open as soon we return the home, coffee will be ready as we get into the kitchen and room temperature will be regulated via your mind.         

Khurram Zahid

The post Internet of Things (IoT): The future of Mobile Apps appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

Sibtain Jiwani

smartchoice.pk

The post Pakistan Broadband Landscape – Infographic appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

Telecom indicators, as published by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), have shown remarkable increase in the number of broadband subscribers – month by month – over the past two years across all sorts of broadband technologies – wired or wireless.

In 2011, for example, total number of broadband subscribers in Pakistan stood at 0.9 Million and jumped close to 2.0 Million by the end of 2012. These trends were exciting – we know how the Internet has help develop countries and societies across the globe – and we know internet awareness will play a powerful role in the development and progress in Pakistan too.

We ran a quick analysis, threw in some number crunching, and have expect broadband growth to stand at 64 percent by the end of 2014 – with broadband subscribers to cross 4.2 Million by the end of this year. This is rapid growth and the momentum just seems to be increasing with every month. Our extrapolation is based on the existing trend.

The graph above shows a year on year (Y-o-Y) comparison of how broadband penetration has grown in Pakistan. We have already written about how the internet is instrumental in the social uplift of societies and countries and we expect good things to come our way in the days to come.

Feel free to share your comments and feedback with us below!

Khurram Zahid

The post Pakistan broadband growth at 64% – expected to cross 4 Million in 2014 appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.