It’s funny, but only after a year, I can really feel the effect that RedesignMalaysia has had. Strangely, only now people are starting to call and contact, expressing interest in this site, give invitations to speaking engagements, or comissioning research, or my opinion on several items. Including:

- Broadband companies
- Companies commisioned to do research on broadband
- Government linked agencies

This is a welcome change, and hopefully results in some earnings. It wasn’t easy to compile the information here and update it (yes, sorry for the lack of frequent updates like last time). RedesignMalaysia.com has been running at an absolute loss, as our aim is more to inform and reform rather than make a huge amount of money. Save for the money earned from Google Adsense, a whopping USD150 in nearly a year, and from Advertlets, which doesn’t really count since I own that, there has been nothing else earned.

Its going to be a busy month If all goes well, over the next few months you’ll see some new content, new features, participation from related companies and agencies and hopefully staff writers as well, as more funding takes this site to become more formidable in the quest for better broadband.

I used to think that Singaporeans get a better deal (compared to Malaysia) when it came to telecommunication services, as they were a country with double our broadband penetration, and better technology laid out (fiber vs copper), as well as better competition between companies.

However, it appears they suffer due to a monopoly as well.

Check out Consumers United Against Starhub Price Hike

Here’s an excerpt. Sounds a lot like what we’ve been saying too, strangely enough.

This is THE time we, the consumers, stand UNITED and send a strong message to monopolistic businesses and instituitions in Singapore, which constantly subject us to price hikes and unfair business practices.

These are the following reasons on where we stand and why YOU should sign on this petition:

1. Starhub’s terms and conditions are unfair and baised against the consumer. We should be allowed avenues to terminate the contract in the event of price hike, without incurring penalties.

2. New price hike should apply to new sign-ups only, and NOT to consumers with existing contracts.

I love this part in particular…what if we did the same to TMNet?

4. Finally, we urged all Starhub cable TV subscribers to continue paying the current rate for their subscribtion and ignore the price hike until Starhub has given us, the consumers, a satisfactory response to our complaints.

On the other hand here’s some good news. Malaysians note - our cable coverage for football is the best in the region. Malaysia (Astro) beats Singapore, Indonesia, & Thailand! Check this out - “Malaysian Sports cable TV Viewers Get Best Deal“. Thanks to IZ for the tip.

Looking at the following URLs, StreamyxSucks.com and Sohai Streamyx Technician…

You begin to wonder whether there’s a better way to improve the situation than just complaining.

Here are a few:

- Go for the competition. Visit the ISP Page. Tell ALL your friends - there are more than 16 ISPs in Malaysia. Not one.
- Be persistent. Find shortcuts. Bypass authority. Fixed your Streamyx problems? Tell people exactly how you managed to get around it.
- Volunteer. Think you can do a better job? Volunteer part time at the Streamyx call centre.
- If you’ve got lots of money - support RedesignMalaysia. We don’t make much from this. Or invest in up and coming broadband companies.
- If you have media - interview us. Highlight the situation. Did you know there are financial penalties for certain companies under Streamyx if the complaint reaches the media?
- Any more suggestions?

I’m sure a lot of you would have heard about the “Call 100″ promotion that TM is currently running, where they say you can call one number to reach all things TM - Celcom, Let’s Talk, TM Net, TM Home Line, etc. Recently I had to try it, about a week ago, but ended up having to call TM Net directly.

Hotline:

100 - this didn’t work, although I selected TM Net, it lead to a perpetually busy tone.
1300881515 - this worked.

I don’t see why this should be happening. Lack of integration perhaps?
Website:

http://tm.net.my - this doesn’t work - leads to a server not found page
http://www.tm.net.my - this works

It should be standard practice to also have a domain accessible even without the www.
On the brighter side, I dropped by a TM Point recently, and I would say their new Payment Kiosk is pretty alright, tested that out too to pay my TM Net bill, since my account was deactivated, and after I made the payment, an hour or two after that my account was activated again, without me having to call them to notify that I made my payment. That was a pleasant surprise. However, their other channels need some work.