Just created a new Facebook Fan page to spread awareness of this website. Please join here: RedesignMalaysia on Facebook.

Right now I’m the only fan, so it’s a bit sad, lol. More updates soon on the Freedom2Talk contest (where I am attempting to win RM50K to take this site to the next level)!

Hi guys - just to let you know that I on behalf of RedesignMalaysia will be taking part in Freedom2Talk’s The Chief Talker competition. Check it out here :freedom2talk.org. The winner will win RM50,000 to be used towards a cause of their choice.

Please vote for me! (Under Joshua Lim), currently on Page 4. This is also a good chance for you to secure a vanity number for Tune Talk’s upcoming telco service. They have a pretty good system for you to book your number in advance. As for me, I’ve gotten 010-LIMJOSH (type it out on your phone, and it’s 010-5465674). Check it out, and remember to vote! Btw, you can only vote once a day. I’m currently at number 16 out of 30, so you know what to do

Upcoming on this site will be: How the RM50,000 will be spent to improve broadband in Malaysia. We have a pretty good plan that I’m quite sure a lot would agree with (but not the funding yet), and hopefully we will soon. Stay tuned!

PS: Drop your comments & suggestions on how the RM50,000 should be spent! (Eg, to buy broadband from different ISPs and test them rigorously, an open forum for broadband users to complain, etc).

Something worth sharing: There seems to be a new group created for Celcom users (mobile & broadband) on Facebook. It doesn’t appear to be official, and there are quite a few comments already, ranging from very negative to queries on how to get it.

Check it out here: Celcom Mobile and Broadband users Wall

Update:

Also a group for Maxis users: Maxis Broadband’s Wall

While there are quite a few negative comments, it’s more likely that people who would take the trouble to find the group (and post) are the ones that have problems with the service. Are there any people who are satisfied with the service? Please comment on this post (or over there), as well as your location. It will help more people find out about the quality of service in their area.

It’s nice to see some competition in the mobile broadband space, particularly from Celcom, Digi & P1. Maxis doesn’t seem to be doing much other than launching modems with different designs. Seriously wtf? FYI: Maxis is at the bottom of the list when it comes to mobile broadband, I tried their broadband service around Kelana Jaya, and my relatives in Tropicana did too. It sucks. Service is very bad considering, especially considering that these are what you call ‘prime areas’ which have some of the highest earnings per household - these should be some of your best customers, really. And their website is devoid of any useful information, asking you to CALL to find out more. Wow.

Digi has taken the trouble to compile a ballsy comparision chart that compares them quite favourably…except for a few key things. While their ‘guaranteed speed’ promise is pretty interesting, they are the most expensive of the bunch. At least they are honest. From here.

Might be good to compile another comparision chart, I’m pretty sure there are some other things worth mentioning.

Meanwhile, P1 has a pretty good package of an Acer Netbook + their mobile broadband solution, the suggestively named WIGGY. 2 year contract.
P1: Acer Laptop + WIGGY promo.

And Celcom has a promo as well: HP / Compaq notebooks with Celcom Broadband

Must say that the HP Mini plan looks tempting. It would probably be good for Digi to bring back their laptop promo. They had one sometime back but it seems to be gone.

Now, to find out how they perform. Stay tuned, we will be compiling usage and speed reports from various users! If you have blogged about using either Digi, P1, Celcom or Maxis broadband, please drop a comment with your link.

Kugan writes about the launch of the P1 Wimax USB Modem called the “Wiggy”. This seems to be in response to the competition from Digi and Celcom’s portable wireless broadband solutions.

Read more here:
http://www.malaysianwireless.com/2009/04/blogger-event-p1-wimax-usb-modem-wiggy.html

Azwan has been testing P1 out so far, and it seems okay. (1199 kb/s!) He also provides a few tips on how to make your P1 Wimax speed faster:
http://jots.mysaraland.com/?p=16

A hilarious picture brought to you by Digi, who have just launched rediscoverbroadband.com.my. The expression is priceless, and I really salute the artist who put it together - first thing, getting a visual reference is hard, and doing it semi-photorealistically with the expression is not easy.

Anyway, oh yeah, the packages - seems to be around the same price as Maxis Broadband. (RM128). It’s interesting that they choose to highlight also the fair usage quota of 50GB. (50GB is roughly…152 episodes of Gossip Girl in high quality video, or approximately 3413 Youtube videos).

Which is pretty decent, given that at some point my entire office used around 50-80GB a month. This is interesting - now all three telcos are using the ’sanitary pad’ style USB broadband modem! Also, there seems to be a rebranding of their internet services as ‘Digi Internet’ instead of ‘Digi Mobile Broadband’ as previously.

This doesn’t seem to have been promoted a lot - and you can only apply via the Digi SS2 outlet, strangely enough.

Btw, did you know that turtles cannot survive without their shells? A turtle without its shell is a dead turtle - it is part of them, not like a hermit crab which can survive without a shell.

Meanwhile, something suspicious is going on at P1 Wimax’s site (owned by Green Packet). Their site is interestingly, down for maintenance, with little explanation. Even the subpages indexed on Google are redirected to the maintenance page. This is the only thing you see when you go to p1.com.my:

This is either a sign that something screwed up really badly - OR - they are launching something new. Given that I’ve met a lot of the people there and they are a smart bunch, and that it is about 2AM as I post this, it’s likely they are doing some major updates to the site. Will wait excitedly and see.

Update: It’s now 4:46AM, same day, and there seems to be a new site up! I’m probably one of the first to see it.

They seemed to have merged the sites - there is no longer both a flash version and a html version (as a web designer, I have to say that those kind of arrangements are very impractical to maintain). The new site works quite well - I like the implementation of Flash here, it’s simple enough yet the little touches (slides, fades, etc) give it a nice polish.

Pricewise - P1 has a competitive low entry point with packages starting from RM49 monthly(!), but here’s what’s interesting -

- Digi is offering download speeds of 3.6 Mbps for approx RM143 (it was sneaky of Digi though to put different prices for the first 6 months and for the second 6 months.), with 50GB fair usage threshold.
- P1 is offering download speeds of 2.4 Mbps for approx RM199 a month with 40GB fair use threshold.

It remains to be seen whether:
- Digi and P1 will compete on pricing
- Or download speed

And oddly enough:

- It’s interesting that there are a lot of styling cues that are similar on both websites: Use of light grey, rounded font for headlines (VAG Rounded or Arial Rounded I believe), curved boxes, slanted fonts - these were design conventions that were established first by P1 in most of their marketing materials, especially the outdoor advertising. There is probably reason to believe this is intentional on Digi’s part, sort of a creative hijack that would work to their advantage perhaps? The turtle is a very original touch though Did I mention I like the turtle? Hahaha!

It’s interesting that BOTH of them are putting out the ‘fair usage threshold’ clearly in their materials. This may be a sign of tighter regulation on the part of the MCMC.

My thoughts? I would sign up for the first one available with decent coverage and speed in my area, regardless of RM50 or so difference

Generally, these point to good times for broadband, with Digi and P1 now set to compete. And yes, even for TMNet - I recently was invited to and attended a session to ‘revive’ the long dead TM Net User Group, and managed to have a good talk with TM Net staff, and upper management. There was also a detailed technical briefing as well as statistics shared on call centre complaints (yes, really!). There are some interesting things ahead, and I will be blogging about it soon.

Btw, I also have another blog now. If you like reading blogs, go read it.

I would now like to end with a joke…about turtles!

Q: What did the snail say when he rode on top of the turtle?
A: Wheeeeee!

(If you don’t get it, it’s okay…)

Lately, me and everyone else who uses Streamyx have been getting slow speeds and frequent timeouts. Guess it’s going to be about a week more for things to return to normal.

From The Star

Circuit faults slow down Internet

PETALING JAYA: Streamyx broadband users will have to bear with sluggish surfing speeds until March 5 due to technical problems, according to a statement by Telekom Malaysia Bhd ™.

The statement said there has been a disruption of TM’s Internet services since Feb 18 due to circuit faults on the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) between Malaysia and the United States.

Due to this, customers using Internet services may now experience slow browsing while accessing content hosted in the United States, said the statement.

Additionally, customers using Internet Protocol services such as Virtual Private Network (VPN) and other critical business applications linked to the United States may also experience some service degradation.

To alleviate the problem and ease the congestion, some links have been rerouted, TM said.

In case you’re wondering, here’s an aggregate based on various tests conducted on Download-Speed.org. Here’s the link: Speed Test Malaysia

TM Net is not in the top 10 unsurprsingly, and private networks rank higher. There’s quite a bit of duplication in the list, so in general (deducting the private university networks and obvious corporate networks, here’s the list (from fastest to slowest). Not all are available in all areas, of course.

1. EB TECHNOLOGIES (M) SDN BHD
2. TIME Telecommunications Sdn. Bhd.
3. Celcom Internet Service Provider
4. NTT MSC Arcnet ISP
5. Setia Haruman Technology, Sdn Bhd
6. Dataone Asia (M) Sdn Bhd
7. VADS Bhd, Internet Service Provider, Kuala Lumpur
8. Airzed Networks Sdn Bhd
9. Packet One Networks (M) Sdn Bhd
10. iZZinet Sdn. Bhd.
11. Telekom Multimedia of Telekom Malaysia Berhad
12. Optical Communication Engineering Sdn Bhd, Selangor
13. Bizsurf (M) Sdn Bhd
14. MyKRIS Asia Sdn Bhd
15. Dataone Asia (M) Sdn Bhd
16. Optical Communication Engineering Sdn Bhd
17. DIGI Telecommunications PTE LTD

Disclaimer: This is based on my judgement on which are private networks (unavailable to consumers), and which are broadband providers that you might actually get to use. It’s also based on a list which only applies to those that have used the site in particular, and may not be representative of overall statistics (eg, all the other internet users in Malaysia).