Ufone 3G Everything you Should need to Know (Introduction, launch and packages)

Introduction

The auction for the next generation 3G licenses took place on the 23rd of April. Ufone was able to win a license  of the 5Mhz block for a base price of US$ 147.5 million. It was the first network to launch an advertisement about getting a 3G license. It commenced its free 3G trial in Lahore from 28th of April again being the first operator to launch a 3G trial. By and by the trial extended and currently Ufone has launched its service in ten cities- Islamabad, Lahore, Quetta, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Peshawar, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala and Sialkot. (The trial is available in selected areas of the cities)

                                           Launch

All the companies where waiting for PTA to award them the licenses so that they could commercially launch their 3G services. The awarding ceremony took place on the 22nd of May. This was the only break which Ufone needed. The stage was all set it just needed a gesture to start and indeed it did. Ufone became the first operator in Pakistan to commercially launch 3G on the 24th of May (announcement for launch was made on 23rd of May), just 2 days after the ceremony! The commercial launch is in the following cities: Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Karachi. Meaning that the trial period for these cities are finished and now they will be charged for their services. The users in Faisalabad, Quetta, Peshawar, Multan, Sialkot and Gujranwala will continue to use the trial until Ufone commercially launches 3G there.

With the commercial launch of these services customers will be able to browse the net, watch online videos, play online games, watch live tv and make video calls, but not free. There is a price for this which will be discussed in the other heading. And also you will need a 3G enabled handset to avail all these mind-blowing facilites.

Packages

A sad thing for Ufone was that it's 3G packages got leaked way before the commercial launch, but this did not stop the giant. Ufone officially announced its 3G packages on 24th of May for both its prepaid and postpaid users, a day after the announcement of the commercial launch. The official packages are mostly same as the leaked packages. Below is a description of the packages:

The first and foremost package is the PayG package (this was not leaked). In this package a person will be charged for the 1st Mb, which is Rs. 20, then after this the next 19 Mb would be free. Again the 21st Mb would be charged at Rs. 20 and the next 19 Mb will be free. This will go on and on. However, the speed will be different like for the 1st 20 Mb the speed would be 1 mbps after that from the 21st Mb the speed will be reduced to 512 kbps.

The other packages are divided into four categories for prepaid:

• Ufone Basic 3G Package (speed upto 256 kbps)

This is a basic package. This package had six different bundles from which we can use. Bundles include: Half day, daily, weekly bundles there are monthly 3G Packages that have data limits of 1GB, 1.5GB and 3GB respectively.  The details and how to subscribe to these packages is given in the table below

3G Package	Charges (PKR)	Volume	Validity (Days)	Subscription Code
Half Day	5	50 MB	*20 Hours	*810#
Daily	10	40 MB	1	*804#
Weekly	50	250 MB	7	*7811#
Monthly 1 GB	200	1 GB	30	*7807#
Monthly 1.5 GB	250	1.5 GB	30	*5506#
Monthly 3 GB	500	3 GB	30	*803#

• Ufone Super 3G Package. ( speed is 512 kbps)

Again a decent speed package. It also comes with weekly and monthly packages.

3G Package	Charges (PKR)	Volume	Validity (Days)	Subscription Code
Weekly	75	250 MB	7	*7814#
Monthly 1 GB	400	1 GB	30	*7809#
Monthly 1.5 GB	550	1.5 GB	30	*5507#
Monthly 3 GB	800	3 GB	30	*8031#

• Ultra Ufone 3G Package (speed up to 1 mbps)

A truly fast package but a little heavy on the pocket of a common man. 

3G Package	Charges (PKR)	Volume	Validity (Days)	Subscription Code
Weekly	125	250 MB	7	*7815#
Monthly 1 GB	550	1 GB	30	*7810#
Monthly 1.5 GB	675	1.5 GB	30	*5508#
Monthly 3 GB	1250	3 GB	30	*8032#

• Super Ultra 3G Package (speed up to 3 mbps)

Wow a super Wow packages. As the speed is quite heavy so is its packages. Lets take a loook.

G Package	Charges (PKR)	Volume	Validity (Days)	Subscription Code
Monthly 1 GB	725	1 GB	30	*813#
Monthly 1.5 GB	900	1.5 GB	30	*814#
Monthly 3 GB	1500	3GB	30	*815#

Again the same PayG package applies to postpaid users. And the other packages are also divided into four categories:

• Basic 3G package (speed up to 256 kbps)

3G Package	Charges (PKR)	Volume	Validity (Days)	Subscription Code
Monthly 1 GB	200	1GB	30	*4547#
Monthly 3 GB	500	3GB	30	*805#

• Super 3G package (speed up to 512 kbps)

G Package	Charges (PKR)	Volume	Validity (Days)	Subscription Code
Monthly 1 GB	500	1GB	30	*4548#
Monthly 3 GB	800	3GB	30	*806#

• Ultra 3G package ( speed up to 3 mbps)    

G Package	Charges (PKR)	Volume	Validity (Days)	Subscription Code
Monthly 1 GB	800	1GB	30	*4549#
Monthly 3 GB	1200	3GB	30	*807#

TVC

That's all for now folks. Hope you guys liked my very first post.
Thank you.