Time dotCom has launched Netlynx, a collaboration with Palette Multimedia Berhad.

The service will be made available in Damansara Perdana from 3 September 2007 onwards. Managing Director Dato’ Baharum Salleh says that Netlynx will be expanded to other parts of Klang Valley, Penang and Johor Bahru within the next six months.

Currently four packages are offered:

1. Netlynx 2Mbps/512Kbps(Dynamic IP)- RM79 (RM119 with Voice)
2. Netlynx 4Mbps/512Kbps(Dynamic IP)- RM179 (RM219 with Voice)
3. Netlynx 6Mbps/512Kbps(Fixed IP)- RM269 (RM319 with Voice)
4. Netlynx 10Mbps/512Kbps(Fixed IP)- RM469 (RM519 with Voice)

Note:

• All voice service is optional
• Promotion price will end 31 December 2007
• All packages comes with 100MB email account
• Voice packages comes with a single line phone
• One time service activation fee: RM75
• One time service installation fee: RM88
• 12 Months contract

I have tested out the 10Mbps during the launch in Damansara Perdana yesterday. While local sites loads up very fast, it was very slow on YouTube. I believe YouTube or the international link was having problem during the test. According to DU Meter, I was allocated a bandwidth of 37Mbps, but the technical team during the live demo claims that it was using the 10Mbps package.

Netlynx is a Metro-e network, IP based, connected to mBone at 30Gbps. The collaboration with Palette will allow Netlynx to offer services like VoIP(Voice over Internet Protocol), VOBB (Voice over Broadband), IPTV and so on.

According to Time dotCom, Netlynx will offer speed up to 100Mbps for business users within the next few months.

Read: “Time just launched Netlynx” -Lowyat.net

Go check it out… www.merdeka.com, for real. From the same people behind this site.

This also marks the 1st anniversary of RedesignMalaysia.com btw. There should be a longer post to commemorate this, but for now, I have been awake for the past 20 hours and need to rest. We have some pretty big announcements and planned activities, so check this space for updates later today or tomorrow.
Happy Merdeka Day! Enjoy the holiday, and remember the sacrifices that others made in the past, to get to where we are today.

This news struck me as a surprise, and was relatively quietly announced - I didn’t get to know about it until someone told me recently.

Apparently, TM is the lead player in a consortium to implement an Asia-US submarine cable, formed by AT&T Inc. (USA), Bharti AirTel (India), Government of Brunei Darussalam (Brunei), British Telecom Global Network Services (UK), CAT Telekom (Thailand), Eastern Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (Philippines), Indosat (Indonesia), Pacific Communications Pte Ltd (Cambodia), Philippines Long Distance Telephone Co. (Philippines), PT Telkom (Indonesia), Saigon Postal Corporation (Vietnam), StarHub (Singapore), Telstra (Australia), Telecom New Zealand International (New Zealand), Viettel (Vietnam) and Vietnam Post & Telecommunications Group of Vietnam (Vietnam).

The cable is called the AAG, or Asia America Gateway. The AAG will provide a seamless direct link between the US and other Asian countries via one single cable. It also has the ability to be expanded to Australia, India, Africa, and Europe. Spanning over 20,000 km, AAG will link Malaysia to the US via Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and the West coast of the US. The cable system is designed to provide a capacity of up to 1.92 Terabits per second of data bandwidth.
It will have an initial capacity of 480Gbps.

TM holds 9% in the equity of the project (majority shareholder). The contract is worth approximately $US500 Million. (Which means TM’s 9% equity is $US45 million / RM157million).

A quote from CEO, Datuk Abdul Wahid Omar: “While we are present in 13 countries in the region and involved in seven existing major submarine cable consortiums, this initiative is still one of the biggest we have undertaken. It will provide TM with additional 60Gbps of capacity, which will help reduce any future potential congestion we may face.”

Another quote: As the AAG is from a single cable network, not only will it have improvements in lowering latency, it will also simultaneously ramp up the international bandwidth capacity to Malaysia at more competitive costs.”

“This impressive joint-effort will go a long way in increasing broadband uptake in this region, which will in turn increase the overall appeal for global investments and increase the competitiveness of the countries benefiting from direct links to the Asia-America Gateway,”

Analysis: Assuming this goes well, Malaysia will surpass Singapore and Thailand in being a regional hub. That means, just like how Malacca was a hub for international trade in the days of yore, Malaysia could be come a hub for international traffic.

Congratulations TM! Let’s hope this happens soon, and that we can see some speed improvements by early next year. My internet connection is getting slower as of late…and from the news article, this project is scheduled to be completed only by December 2008…

You can read more here, on IT Wire, or on TM’s press release section on its official website.

You might be either surprised, or not surprised at all, but Earl’s connection speed is back to terrible again.

The Lowyat.net boys have their say on earlier visit here: TMNet CEO Visits Streamyx Customer, Earl-Ku’s House

Rigged? TC_Boy has this to say: “There was an article posted here (on Lowyat.net) before about how ISPs usually mark certain ips to be given max bandwidth & high priority because it belongs to broadband speed test sites. They have fooled the user and the press. The speed maybe for real too but only for him or his DSLAM.”

Hmm…

The Story In Summary:

1. Earl, not happy with TMNet, wrote a letter to The Malay Mail
2. The Malay Mail published the letter.
3. He got a couple of phone calls.
4. Next thing he knows, the CEO of TMNet is in his house, sitting on his bed
5. Earl shows the CEO his connection speed of 10-12kB/s
6. CEO plugs in his own laptop and gets 160-170kB/s
7. When Earl asked…how can the speed be so different?
8. They said its maybe because of “spyware”, or his “processor”.
9. Earl is still not happy.
10. Earl tests his connection again later in the day.
11. His speed is now 130-155 kB/s. Wow.
12. My speed still sucks.
13. So, when can I expect a visit?

Consumers, getting faster broadband speeds with Streamyx is now easy. Just sign up with your nearest friendly Streamyx reseller. Then, after you’ve set up your connection, all you have to do is write a letter, get it published, get the CEO of TMNet to show up in your house, and your connection will be super fast!

PS: Earl is not making the whole story up. I have a few of the same namecards and have spoken to a few of the same people, and spoken to him on the phone regarding this issue.

Earl’s latest result:

My latest result:

Do I get a visit too? Please?

Consumers: Here’s an important thing to note. (Update: yes guys, my mistake, its capitalization not the / that marks the difference. I’m happily surprised two of you noticed it, and just to be clear, as you said: “Kb/s or Kbps is the same thing.. the different is kBps or kB/s where the former is bits and the latter is Bytes. Notice the capital B for bytes.”) Use this to convert if you’re not sure.

Also, if you want to do a speed test on Speedtest.net, use an international server, not a local one. Local servers are much faster, and don’t give you a “true” idea of what the speed of your connection is to the outside world.

Here’s also some “insider” information I know, draw your own conclusions.

- VPS services, can bypass traffic shaping or throttling or speed limiting utilities.
- There is a certain allocation of bandwidth in Malaysia for “VIP” users that remains strictly allocated for those usrs, whether or not the “VIP” users are using it or not.

TMNet’s getting smarter
Back to the topic. So, what do you think is happening here? One thing’s pretty surprising though - TMNet is actually getting pretty smart at this (my personal congratulations to you, “A.B”, no malice intended), and it was a well planned “ambush”. From what Earl told me, TMNet brought some journalists and photographers as well with them when the CEO came to Earl’s house. And there was no prior warning that the CEO and everyone was going to be there. Earl was told that only a technician would be coming - not the whole entourage.

Which sucks, because the plan was to have myself and other people to test the connection as well, on our own hardware and make note of any special settings that they might have configured during the event…the secret “unlock” mechanism? As I’ve heard a rumour that some people have bribed TMNet technicians to improve their individual connections, which means that there is some “hidden” bandwidth available.

I would dismiss the whole thing as PR spin and VPS tomfoolery, but the fact is seriously, his connection is fast now. Congratulations, TMNet. And congratulations, Earl!

But where does that leave everybody else? Normal consumers?
This leaves me with the following possible conclusions:

- Although each subscriber is promised unlimited bandwidth, not everyone gets it.
- It could be because it’ll cost more to actually deliver the service as promised to consumers.
- Prominent complainers could get better connections, as then TMNet has no choice.
- So, do you know what to do next? Start writing…

In conclusion, here’s a quote made by TMNet, taken slightly out of context as the speaker was referring to P2P. However, could the same thing apply to even normal usage? Think of it, and remember that the Internet And Multimedia business of TM’s revenue contribution was RM869.9 million for Q4 2006.

“we cannot upgrade our infrastructure (merely) for the benefit of the minority.”

And my closing comment? Sure you can, just take a bit off the marketing budget. And how much is too much? Given the current situation, I think TMNet can afford to spend a lot more. When in doubt, remember that South Korea only became the most advanced broadband nation simply because the goverment was willing to go into debt and temporarily, for a while have more broadband supply than there was demand - the price for progress is expensive, but you’re a GLC, you can afford it! Please

Footnote (and this is also to A.B as well): No disrespect intended to TMNet, I think it was a good thing that the effort was taken to address the situation (although I disagree with the means slightly), but wouldn’t it be great to also address complaints online, not just those that appear in the mainstream media? There has not been one official reply to any comments here, even though it has been nearly a year since this site has been online…

Those of you who read this blog often will know that Advertlets.com is one of our partners. The Malay and Malay language blogger community has been particularly supportive of RedesignMalaysia and Advertlets, and I’m happy to announce the following gathering in support of our local blogging scene:
Apakah Rumpun? Rumpun ‘07 adalah satu akitiviti santai yang akan menemukan para penggiat aktiviti berasaskan internet. Dengan matlamat untuk menemukan mata dengan mata antara semua yang selama ini hanya kenal melalui papan kekunci & tetikus.� weRumpun 2007 adalah pembuka tirai kepada aktiviti-aktiviti yang akan datang. Untuk edisi sulung ini, kami tampil’kan konsep santai.

Bila dan mana?25th Ogos 2007, Pelita Nasi Kandar, Jalan Ampang KL.

Apakah Advertlets? Advertlets adalah sebuah media pengiklanan generasi baru yang kool! Terima kasih kepada Advertlets yang sudi menaja Rumpun 2007 supaya kita semua dapat menikmati teh tarik, teh ‘o’ ais, tongkat ali plus atau apa-apa yang menjadi kegemaran di’sana nanti. Jika kalian belum mengenal Advertlets, ada baik’nya kalian melawat mereka dan lawatan kalian tidak akan di’kenakan bayaran sama sekali, Advertlets malah akan hulur’kan duit. Kerna itulah, Advertlets kool!

Translasi Lebih Senang: Jom datang mamak beramai-ramai, berkumpul dengan blogger blogger Melayu! Advertlets akan belanja minum wei!

Syarat: Ini terbuka kepada semua blogger di seluruh Malaysia (di Singapura atau Indonesia pun boleh turut serta!) yang menulis blog dalam Bahasa Malaysia, bukan untuk mereka yang berkaum Melayu sahaja. Walaupun begitu, tengoklah senarai kehadiran Rumpun - janganlah biarkan saya seorang Cina Beng sahaja yang di sana! Sertailah kami, dan menyaksikan aksi aksi menarik para blogger BM! Tentu heboh wei!

Sila lawati www.happypeoplemedia.com/rumpun untuk butiran yang selanjutnya.

Tukar balik kepada Bahasa Inggeris: By the way, “rumpun” means “clump”, like “gather” not grass, which is “rumput” The picture is intentionally to confuse you, I think. Haha.