Hello. This starts off as a “summary type post” written inspired by the following article on BusinessWeek. The article : Ten Stories that Defined Broadband in 2008 actually talks about broadband globally (with a definite US slant), and I recommend you read it before reading my comments below - which are relevant to Malaysia.

And then later on, it’s followed by a summary of some hopes for 2009, some random comments, and further developments for RedesignMalaysia.com in 2009.

1. Optical cable cuts bookmark the year

A total of three cables went out throughout the year 2008, but thankfully, internet access here wasn’t quite as badly affected as it was last time when the Taiwan earthquake affected our connection locally. As this time, it was only if you were surfing a website that was hosted in Europe or countries close to it that you would be affected.

Details on what happened here at MalaysianWireless

2. Peering Troubles Disrupt the Internet

Probably irrelevant to most Malaysians, as it is mainly a US issue between Cogent, Telia & Sprint.

3. The unwelcome rise of metered broadband.

In the time to come, it looks like local ISPs such as Streamyx will continue throttling P2P downloads. So much for “unlimited broadband”. It’s easy to market something as “unlimited”, and while most of this may be fine and unnoticed for newbie users, those that have legitimate needs for things such as video streaming, P2P and online gaming will definitely feel that they are getting shortchanged.

It remains to be seen if TM Streamyx will either:

a) provide true “unlimited” access to all
b) admit in a way that “unlimited” was a misleading term, and start offering uncapped packages at different price levels.
c) continue exactly as the way it is

Option A is unlikely, Option B is possible (but will look bad for them), and Option C unfortunately, is the most likely.

If you’re interested to see what other local ISPs to do cope with P2P traffic, read more here.

4. Wireless Broadband Takes Wings, Thanks To The iPhone 3G

There is an astounding amount of Malaysians with iPhones (well, at least among my friends). Considering that its not officially launched here, and neither do Maxis, Digi or Celcom support it officially, its quite interesting that people here have taken the trouble to crack the phone and get it to work. You cannot get an iPhone from the local Apple store - the only way is to buy it from overseas, or get it from a grey market retailer.

But anyway, the topic here is basically surfing on mobile. Local mobile wireless surfing is rapidly growing due to devices such as the iPhone, and smart phones. Which brings us to the likely conclusion of what we may see more of soon: Phone + Laptop + Internet Access packages. This is a good thing, provided that the package actually makes things cost less rather than more.

5. Planet Broadband

There are now 400 million broadband users in the planet. Malaysia still lags behind in terms of speed, price and availability. Meanwhile, Singapore which is like, 50 times smaller than Malaysia can offer broadband packages of 100 Mbps and in the United Kingdom, there are 50Mbps connections available.

Meanwhile, in Malaysia, we’re stuck with an average of 1-2, with a upper limit of 5-10 Mbps which tend to be for expensive corporate packages. There’s a rumour going around that Google wanted to host a datacenter in Malaysia, however, there is insufficient bandwidth available for their needs.

6. Outages become commonplace

In 2008, even Google, Yahoo and Amazon went down due to increased load. Malaysians will find its nothing new as we frequently are unable to access all kinds of websites on a regular basis, though, not due to problems on the part of the websites themself - rather, our connection to the internet.

7. Clearwire and the divergent fortunes of Wimax

Wimax wise in Malaysia, P1 (Packet One) Wimax is gaining some ground, together with the unfortunately obcure AsiaSpace Amax (which seems to cover only select parts in Klang Valley). YTL has missed the deadline in implementing Wimax, while Redtone has launched corporate broadband services in Sabah. More news here.

8. Troubles Return To Telecom Land

In the US, the banking, automotive, property and telecoms industry were affected by the credit crunch. Locally though, we have a dubious situation: Not many companies are affected, simply because there aren’t that many companies and choices around.

9. Good-bye, Mr Martin

While this references an FCC chairman who is largely responsible for US Telecommunication related items, it’ll be interesting to see how Barack Obama’s new team and new FCC leader will affect connectivity in the US and consequently, the world. Malaysia is very much dependent on international connectivity as well - eg, most of us use MSN Messenger, and use Google for search, etc.

Conclusion & Other News

Mobile Number Portability was probably one of the bigger things to happen in 2008 for the local telecommunications industry, and definitely shook things up. Both Digi and Celcom seem to be benefiting from this so far.

Btw, there’s now a new mobile operator apparently! If you like the novelty of having your number start with 010 (eg 010-3456789), check out XOX or news here. And if you find the service sucks, you can always keep the number, and switch operator.

Let’s hope 2009 is a better year for broadband in Malaysia! Hopefully the competitiveness happening with Mobile Number Portability in the telco field will spill over into broadband, or result in some smart “joint packages” of sorts. For example, an incentive for telcos to keep their customers from switching: Offer a broadband + mobile service package to make it cheaper/more convenient overall for customers to stay with them.

If you’re wondering what I use personally, and my thoughts on it as a consumer (it may help you make a decision if you have similiar usage patterns): If you’re planning to use a mobile broadband package: DON’T USE MAXIS BROADBAND. I did, and it was terrible. Slower than dialup although they told me my area was covered. I’m still using them for my mobile service, however that may change. There were quite a bit of dropped calls in November 2008, as well as recently, I find that SMSes need to be recent.

The BlackBerry Bold promotion for Celcom is quite tempting (switch your line to Celcom, get a free Blackberry Bold if you use above RM500 a month), though I wonder if their mobile coverage is decent (I used to have quite a bit of issues reaching people on Celcom numbers - including one of the children of someone in upper Celcom management!). I’m still using Streamyx at home/work, and its been mostly reliable in my area (Aman Suria/Dataran Prima/Tropicana/Kelana Jaya). However I’ll probably be considering the following options for broadband too: P1 (as soon as they launch in my area), or Digi or Celcom (depending if I get the Bold).

Meantime, in 2009 I resolve to update this blog more often. Hopefully even a few times a week, however most likely shorter, “breaking news” type articles. We’re still the number one result for “malaysia broadband” on Google as of 2007, 2008 and now 2009 - and hopefully, I will be able to update this blog more often and add new features (such as the broadband coverage map which is due for a rehaul).

Given that Advertlets.com (which is my day job and 1.8 year old baby startup) is set to expand quite a bit in 2009 with a new injection of funding and staff, I hope to be able to also put together a volunteer team for RedesignMalaysia to make sure this site continues to expand as well. Drop me a mail at RedesignMalaysia@Advertlets.com if you’re interested to contribute. Telcos and broadband providers are also welcome to contact me to share details - things like your IP ranges, and coverage information will be very useful. Cheers!

PS: Also look out for The Star this Sunday. Why? Oh, no particular reason

From an article on ArsTechnica citing suggestions on how the US can improve broadband. Applies to us too…TELCOS PLEASE READ! I’ve bolded the interesting parts.

Japan. The government requires local loop unbundling so that new ISPs can emerge without having to rewire the last mile every time. The government also has a 34 percent stake in NTT, one of the major telecoms, and has ordered it to deploy fiber whether or not it shows a profit; broadband is considered a key piece of infrastructure that can’t simply be deployed only where it is profitable. The government also subsidizes a third of the cost of all fiber-to-the-home deployments in rural areas, where rolling out new lines can prove terribly expensive. The result is one of the fastest broadband networks in the world at one of the lowest price-per-megabit points anywhere.