wi-tribe

wi-tribe is an internet services provider (3G & 4.5G) operating in Pakistan. It operates in the following four major cities, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Karachi. Wi-tribe is the first one in Pakistan, as well as South Asia and the Middle East, to launch LTE-Advanced (4.5G) to users. LTE-Advanced is currently only available in Lahore and Karachi, which will soon expand to other places.[1]

wi-tribe
Public Limited Company
IndustryInternet Service Provider
FoundedApril of 2007
Headquarters
Islamabad
,
Pakistan
Key people
Hasan Bokhari, HB Group Chairman;

Shahid Malik, Wi-tribe Chairman & President; Sajid Malik, Chief Technology Officer; Sheeraz Ahmed, Chief Commercial Officer;

Qaiser Rasheed, Chief Financial Officer.
ProductsLTE Advanced 4.5G Wi-Max Internet & Zoom EVDO
ParentHB Group, Pakistan
Websitehttp://www.wi-tribe.pk/

History

In 2009, the wi-tribe group, owned by Qatar Telecom (now Ooredoo) launched its largest operations in Pakistan. In Pakistan, wi-tribe is operating in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi.[2][3][4] Wi-tribe Pakistan is one of the only two telecoms in Pakistan that is an ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) approved employer.[5]

HB Group's acquisition from Qatar Telecom

In March 2016, wi-tribe was acquired by the HB Group from Ooredoo. This followed an Ooredoo Board decision to focus on its core telecoms business, which meant an exit from the Pakistan home broadband internet service provider market. The Citi Group advised and managed the sale of wi-tribe on behalf of Ooredoo.

2016-present

Within three months of the acquisition by the HB Group wi-tribe invested heavily in improving its customer experience by doubling its spectrum bandwidth across Pakistan. By August 2016, the upgrade had been completed across the entire wi-tribe network in Pakistan.

In November 2016, the management considered investing in 4G LTE home broadband to upgrade its services. The wi-tribe board later announced that it would skip a generation and instead of adopting 4G technology, it would shift to 4.5G LTE Advanced (LTE-A) technology.

In February 2017, wi-tribe announced that it had signed a contract with Huawei to upgrade its entire network from WiMAX to an LTE-A (4.5G) network, the most advanced broadband technology in the world. This deployment is the first network of such in South Asia and the Middle East operating on 4.5G LTE-A on the 3.5 GHz (3500 MHz) band.[6]

The new 4.5G LTE-A network has been installed at Wi-tribe's Head Office in F-8 Islamabad, using equipment from Huawei, with whom wi-tribe signed a USD 15 million contract and a strategic partnership for upgrade of wi-tribes network to LTE-A in five cities, namely Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore, and Faisalabad.[7] The network is currently undergoing large scale field tests having proven extremely successful in lab tests and will made available to the public in September 2017.[8]

In September 2017, as per schedule, Wi-tribe launched its 4.5G LTE Advanced services in Pakistan.

In October 2017, Wi-tribe introduced Pakistan's first one terabyte package, which garnered much attention from local consumers.

References
  1. "Coverage Area | wi-tribe". wi-tribe. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  2. "the tribes | wi-tribe". Wi-tribe.pk. Retrieved 2012-03-25.
  3. "wi-tribe Ranked Pakistan's No. 1 Broadband Company". Propakistani.pk. 2010-12-10. Retrieved 2012-03-25.
  4. http://www.pta.gov.pk/media/wll_list_090212.pdf
  5. "wi-tribe turns ICAEW approved employer". Technologytimes.pk. 2011-12-17. Retrieved 2012-03-25.
  6. "Pakistan to Get its First 4.5G LTE Advanced Network in Just Few Months". 2017-02-08. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  7. "Wi-tribe & Huawei collaborate to deliver advanced 4.5G LTE network in Pakistan". TechJuice. 2017-02-08. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  8. "Wi-tribe installs first ever 4.5G LTE network in Pakistan". TechJuice. 2017-03-20. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
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