I got notified this from a reader, and managed to confirm that eB Technologies is no longer taking new residential signups, and will only be doing corporate broadband for the time being. From the looks of it, a representative said it was “temporary”, but has not given a timeline.

They will continue to serve existing customers though. I wonder why they decided to do this - is it that hard to make a profit from residential broadband? That being said, I sympathize with them - having to compete with Streamyx’s marketing budget (billboards, tv commercials, direct mail, and all) is not easy.

I remember there was a reader who asked that, if TMNet ever implemented the Volume Based System, how would we know we were being billed correctly? I got my answer in this post from FriedBeef.com, which previously featured an interview with RedesignMalaysia.com previously. Here’s an excerpt:

You can read more on Bitemeter II here, which is freeware by the way. This will probably be useful for those who are on Streamyx Basic 384K or Streamyx Basic 512K packages, which charge you per minute after you’ve used up either 10/60 hours. And also those on the 1MBps/2MBps packages who want to know whether they are getting what they are paying for.

Some of you have been asking how you can contribute further to the development of RedesignMalaysia.com, and further ways to improve broadband in Malaysia.

I’m not sure how many of you are aware, but the web development, design, content, planning, media relations and marketing (basically everything) behind RedesignMalaysia.com is fully sponsored by Josh Lim & Associates, including our full time staff, contract workers, and volunteers. Altogether, it has proven to be quite a mammoth effort, taking up more than 1500 man-hours and counting.

Our position as a web design and marketing company puts us in a good place to run the website - seeing that we have a history of putting sites together, and publicizing them. However, RedesignMalaysia.com is our own company grown initiative, and wasn’t commissioned by any client, hence its kind of different (ie, also costly).

The start of the year has brought us quite a bit of projects, and we’ll like to have more people involved, ideally, people with some time to spare. We are looking for people to fill fulltime positions mainly, however we are also open to contract workers and volunteers. Why its going to be fun, in one sentence: We do a whole range of exciting client projects, including RedesignMalaysia.com - and we’re also planning to launch a few Web 2.0 services this year to do with blogs, Malaysia, advertising and community.

Our clients include companies such as CIMB, Proton Berhad, Pernod Ricard Malaysia, Manhattan Fish Market and more! Other than that we also work together with our technology/advertising partners on projects for various telcos and organizations.

So, this is what we’re looking for:

1. Do you know Wordpress/Joomla/PHP/CSS/AJAX/HTML and more? We need web developers & web designers.
2. We need more hardcore Adobe Flash Actionscript/XML developers. I know there are more than 6 of you existing in Malaysia, why are they so hard to find?
3. Are you a good illustrator/animator/video editor? We’re also looking to populate this site and others with some cool illustrations and motion graphics. We’ll also like to come up with a RedesignMalaysia.com infomercial to put on Youtube.
4. Is your England very the powderful? We need writers and researchers.
5. We would also like to know if anyone here can volunteer legal assistance, for us to research the implications on things such as contracts, consumer rights and the National Broadband Plan.
6. And of course, client servicing people, project managers & strategists are required to keep it all from getting too crazy.

Your boss and comrade would be a relatively okay dude, which has been on Fear Factor Malaysia, hijacked a RM30 million dollar ad campaign, speaks at seminars to everyone from students to government officials, used to be a theatre actor (Dataran Merdeka Actor’s studio, before it got flooded), and has been designing web sites for over 9 years. You’ll also be working with other people who have won student short film awards, composed music for Malaysian hip hop artistes, and modelling around the world (did you know he’s also very good at numbers?). Your office environment will have free junk food, designer furniture, indie rock/pop music, and a trendy 1600 sq. ft. SoHo ambience.

Send your resume to info@redesignmalaysia.com or josh.lim@josh.com.my. Even if you don’t think you fit the bill, you can still help - tell a friend or link to this post using the banner image. Don’t know a lot, but willing to work hard and learn? We also take interns (so far we’re had interns from MMU, Universiti Malaya, University Putra Malaysia & The One Academy). Thanks!

According to a very reliable source, we got to know the following about the current P2P blocking issue facing Streamyx users:

- TMNet is currently in the process of testing their “Volume-Base system”
- As its still in the development phase, the call center won’t be able to tell you much.
- The block is implemented from 6AM - Midnight.
- The P2P block was implemented after the Taiwan earthquake because they noticed that “p2p downloading was adding to performance degradation on their network”
- “Weather permitting”, the block will be lifted at the end of January, when the Taiwan circuit is fully restored

Based on the above information, and bandwidth usage starting to show up on bills, we speculate that TMNet will release new packages to cater for heavy broadband users. To be fair, this should result in cheaper packages for light users - and not more expensive packages for heavy broadband users, presumably. As for the throttling, well - let’s hope its really lifted when the Taiwan circuit is restored, and maybe too, it’ll all get settled in the next two days.

Malaysians are “text maniacs”, say today’s Malay Mail. Apparently, 21 million of us cell phone users, send out 84 million text messages out daily. And assuming each SMS costs 10 sen, Malaysians are spending about RM8.4 million a day! And this is without factoring in premium sms at all.
How much do Malaysians pay for broadband per day? Yes, we know you are billed monthly. Let’s calculate just how much TMNet Streamyx subscribers spend, since they have the vast majority of market share.The last verified number of Streamyx subscribers was 732,000, according to TM’s news release. Let’s try some very conservative estimates. The lowest package for Streamyx is RM20 (Basic 384Kfor 10 hours), and the highest is RM1188 (2MBps Corporate). The bulk of users would presumably be the RM77 and RM88 ones.

Hence:

Per month: RM77.00 x 732,000 = RM56,364,000.00 = RM56 million
Per day:RM56,364,000.00 divided by 30 days (1 month) = RM1,878,800.00 = RM1.87 million
Per Year: RM676,368,000.00 = RM 676 million.

732,000 TMNet subscribers pay TM Net a total of RM 1.87 million a day collectively.

Its quite obvious that TMNet is doing well. Last year, in September 2006, the Internet & Multimedia division of TM (presumably TMNet), recorded a profit of RM626 million.

Readers: How much do you think TMNet spends on marketing…and how much do you think they spend upgrading their services? Does anyone here have access to any figures?

Please also feel free to correct my math or assumptions if you think they are erroneous.

This is for all the users of P2P & Bittorrent using TMNet Streamyx. Yes, your P2P traffic is being blocked and throttled.

Whether eDonkey, BearShare, iMesh, SoulSeek, eMule, Kazaa, Kazaa Lite, Shareaza, Napster, Limewire, Azereus, Bitcomet, uTorrent, BitSpirit, BitConjurer, BitTornado…or even those using Skype or the iTunes music store (yes, that too is being blocked).

Make yourself heard. Banners for now. An action plan soon. Freedom to use our promised “unlimited” connections, hopefully soon.

Update: Thanks to forum user AZ10 on Cari.com.my, we have a Chinese translation of the above!

这是为P2P & Bittorrent 的所有用户使用TMNet Streamyx 。是, 您的P2P 交通被阻拦和被节流。是否eDonkey 、BearShare, iMesh, SoulSeek, eMule, Kazaa 、Kazaa Lite,Shareaza 、Napster 、Limewire 、Azereus, Bitcomet, uTorrent, BitSpirit、BitConjurer, BitTornado… 甚至那些使用Skype 或iTunes 音乐商店(是, 太被阻拦) 。做自己听见。横幅暂时。行动计划很快。自由使用我们的被许诺的”� 限的” 连接, 有希望地很快。

Bonus: (Lost in translation type humour) If you use Google’s automatic Chinese > English translator, the posting which was originally meant to say “For those that don’t understand English, read the Chinese version” gets mangled into “Chinese people do not understand the purpose of English”. Well, I’m a Chinese myself, but I’ve always found English pretty useful…

A letter recently came to my attention, and the writer has informed me that he is “actually at a loss” and “going around by any means possible trying to get TM’s attention to fix this problem.”

In summary: Redzuan has been waiting for a stunning three weeks for a complaint to be resolved. A quote - “Three weeks to rectify an issue with the customer himself chasing for updates and followups daily in the past week is something unheard of in a country that prides itself for having a supposed 1st class infrastructure. ”

Perhaps the TM Net Staff who read this (Yes, we know there at least 3 of you…) could attend to him? You can get his contact from me or refer to the report number. The bold emphasis on the letter is mine and not of the author:

For easy reference, here are some of the more popular petitions for better broadband in Malaysia…read on for more on what you can do below.

Better Broadband For The Rakyat� (English)
Excerpt: “We, the sound and the Rakyat of Malaysia, are fustrated by the broadband service offered by Telekom Malaysia’s TMnet Streamyx. TMnet monopolize the market by owning most of the ‘last mile’ in Malaysia and failed to provide a decent coverage to the Rakyat.”

This is a rather popular one, with 3173 signatures to date. It’s also where we were inspired to get our site’s tagline. I’ve tried to get in contact with the author of the petition so far, but there has been no response.

Streamyx Broadband Petition� (English/Chinese)
Excerpt: “Same Monthly Fee BUT Different Speed. I’m paying RM66/month and had recently upgraded to 1Mbps, I believe that some of you or most of you are still having the speed of 512Kbps. Some of my friends are paying RM88/month but their speed is the same as my new speed now. Do you think it’s very unfair this way? I pay less, I got faster line but they pay more and got the same speed as mine.”

This petition is more recent, this year (2007), but already has 1587 signatures. It seems to have been started by the webmaster of a cosplay/costume play� community, but has attracted interest from varied parties, particularly the Chinese community.

Question: What if we were to do a mega-petition/broadband suckiness awareness campaign? The problem with having online petitions is that nobody reads them except for the people online. Do you think that it could come to the attention of the government?

I have an idea actually. What if we were to all contribute a small amount of money each, to buy media space to make our dissatisfaction known? Like a giant billboard on the LDP or a full page color spread in The Star? It doesn’t take a lot per person, and it has been done before - check out how the 10,000� enthusiasts of Mozilla Firefox made history and bought two full pages in the New York Times.

And we could complement it with a guerilla campaign, TheTruthAboutPrepaid style - with stickers, newspaper inserts, staged protests (TheTruthAboutPrepaid volunteers actually did stage a campaign in front of Menara Maxis), website (of course), etc. If we get enough support we could even do roadshows and pass out flyers/free baloons� to members of the public.

So, my question to you is, how can we make this happen, and what can you do as an individual?

1. How much would you be willing to contribute, individually?
2. Or, as a company - would you be able to motivate your organization, or are you in a position to contribute?
3. How much time would you be willing to contribute as a volunteer?
4. What special skills or resources besides money could you volunteer personally or as a company? (Eg, computer programming, hardware, graphic design, time, on-event effort)
5. What media channels do you think we could best utilize to get the message out? Television? Outdoor advertising? Magazines? Newspapers? Mamak stall tabletop advertising? (Besides the internet, of course.)

Josh Lim