Mobile phone companies have earned billions of rupees within six hours during mobile virus rumour spread across the country last week, market sources told PPI.
They said: "You might have thought the rumour has caused loss to the cellular companies, but the fact is that these companies suffered no loss rather generated a handsome and record revenue from these rumours." They were the subscribers, who suffered loss by making calls to friends about rumour besides receiving torments during this period, they remarked.
Most subscribers switched off their cell phones after the rumours, but majority of them sent record messages and called to their family members, friends, relatives and loved ones to apprise them about the deadly virus, sources said.
People involved in mobile phone business appreciated the role of print and electronic media for exposing these rumours, and said if media did not do so they would have to face a major financial loss.
The sources in retail mobile selling business denied any financial loss in terms of mobile phones sale. Some mentioned that rumours were propagated just because of illiteracy and trend of forwarding any thing without confirming.
Officials of some mobile phone companies said that virus was just a hoax and a practical joke, which was absolutely baseless and had no scientific or technological proof.
They asserted that there was no record of such rumours in the past. "If any virus had been found in mobile phone network, we would have been in the forefront to announce such hazards to public," they added.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), commenting on the rumours of mobile phone virus, explained that there was no virus found in mobile phone network anywhere in the country.
The management of a cellular company mentioned that inquiries into mobile virus were now at the drop scene as 20 percent of the complainants called for probe into the virus rumour per day during the last week, but now they had not been asking about the issue.
Senior Chairman of Mobile Phone Committee of the Karachi Electronics Dealers Association Muhammad Saeed Qureshi stated that the cellular companies had a mushrooming business in Karachi. He said that those companies had repeatedly been reminded to follow laws while providing connections.
"We in Saddar Mobile Market and Citizen-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) chief Sharafuddin Memon have reminded mobile phone networking companies on various occasions not to provide connections without fulfilling certain laws but no heed has so far been paid in this regard as the connections are being sold out even at footpaths," he said.
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