P1 (Packet One) broadband has launched its new website yesterday apparently. You can view the flash version or the HTML version here. I recommend the HTML one.

If you don’t know what WiMax is to start with, read here.
I love question and answer number 1.5 by the way. Hilarious!

Is P1 W1MAX safe to use?
• Absolutely! P1 W1MAX is totally safe to use.

Phew, that’s great to know! Now that we have health concerns out of the way…

The news in short: RM1999 (!) to start, and anywhere between RM49-RM269 for 400 kbps - 2.4 Mbps. Interestingly, the lowest pricing range is if you take the 24 month contract. However, if you sign up before 30th September 08, you apparently get a the modem for free (worth RM999)

Speed is noted on a “best efforts” basis. Coverage so far includes:
Gombak, Johor Bahru, Kampung Baru, KL City Center, Sentul, Setapak, Subang Hi-Tech, Subang Jaya, Sunway, USJ.

Note: If you’re reading this, P1, please consider the Kelana Jaya/Bandar Utama/Tropicana/Damansara Perdana area. Really! Not only because I stay there, but there are lots of people who do who can afford the higher pricing bracket that P1 Wimax is in, and are willing to pay for better service.

More here on coverage areas

Size: The modem size is either going to be super tiny, or huge, as seen from these pictures

Questions remaining:
- There’s something called an RM10 “Nationwide Access Fee”, which presumably means that when you subscribe to their service, you only get it for your area? Does this mean state, or area (eg, Selangor OR Petaling Jaya?)

Also, lastly there are some tips on which package is worth it for you, and also some speculation on the eventual speed of the service at MalaysianWireless.com. There seems to also be a call for feedback from P2P users as well, so leave your comments.

Remember, all services are always fastest when they first come out - but what happens later? It’ll be interesting to see if this higher pricing point will enable P1 to deliver.

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

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.

This comes as a surprise, as I was expecting some of the WiMax people to roll out first. Nothing glamourous though, access speeds are comparable to Streamyx (1-megabit per second access speed), covering Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam, Cheras and Ampang. Very basic details are available from The Star. It is based on the iBurst technology, which you can read more about here - Wikipedia: iBurst

However, the ever helpful techies at Lowyat and MalaysiaWireless have some things to say:

Pros

Rajulkabir quotes on Lowyat.net that “Good news about them is that they do not seem to be connected through TMnet, so their connection to the rest of the world might not suck:”. He has also posted a traceroute that seems to confirm it.

Small thing, but iZZi shows big thinking. Someone’s putting in effort, they have a Google Maps mashup of their coverage area. As a web designer I must also say their website is not bad (well structured, good use of pictures of pretty girls using laptops), but they could get better hosting (several timeouts occured while accessing the site).

Cons

Price. JinXXX says: “holy shit..its super super expensive…” You can see the prices here at MalaysianWireless - iZZi Iburst Mobile Wireless Broadband. Investigating more on the Lowyat thread seems to hint that you need to pay upfront for the whole year. That means you need to fork out more than RM1K before you get any service.

The fine print: “Please note that a variety of factors can affect whether or not any location can connect to the iZZi network. Being within range of a iZZi coverage area does not guarantee that you will be able to connect to the iZZi network. “� …Then what guarantees it?

General conclusion

It will definitely work well for a few rich people..who live in already well connected areas. What about the rest? Coverage areas need to increase, but the real question here is - can they deliver what they promise? If they can, I’ll rather pay iZZi than Streamyx. At comparable monthly price ranges (discounting the fact that you need to pay upfront), it may be more worth it to switch.

I will be adding this to the ISP list soon, but in the meantime do let me know of your experience using iZZi, if anyone has signed up already.
.
Here’s a challenge to iZZi! RedesignMalaysia.com, located in Kelana Jaya will stress test your ISP’s service to the maximum as well as real world testing trials and post reviews on your service (no guarantee whether favourable or critical) in exchange for 1 year’s free access (inclusive of everything). If you’re confident and up for it, e-mail me at info@redesignmalaysia.com

The Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission has released a mandatory standard for Quality of broadband service in Malaysia starting 1 January 2008.

Here are the conclusions(Applies to all ISPs):

• 80% of installation orders must be fulfilled within 24 hours from the time and date requested by the customer.
• 80% of service restoration must be completed within 24 hours from the time and date requested by the customer.
• 90% of billing complaints must be resolved in 15 business days of receipt of the complaint.
• Network latency to the nearest edge node(BRAS), shall be no more than 85ms(95% of the time)
• Bandwidth utilisation between the user and the nearest edge node of the regional broadband network(BRAS) should be no less than 80% of the subscribed level(95% of the me)-it means local sites will load faster
• Packet loss should not exceed 1% between the user and the nearest edge node of the regional broadband network(BRAS)

BRAS-Broadband Remote Access Server

On top of all theses mandatory standards, all ISPs must produce a report to MCMC every six months.

Mandatory Standards for Quality of Service(Broadband Access Service)-PDF file

The question is:

• What if the customers are still not satisfied on the service offered? (MCMC will be judging the service based on the report produced by the ISPs, what about consumers?)
• Do I still pay RM77 when service is always not available, or when the technical guy is taking his sweet time to come over to my place?
• What happens to the ISPs if the mandatory standards are not fulfilled?
• Why “best effort” still remains? Does MCMC support these terms?
• Why wait until January,2008? Does it mean that we will suffer until then and no action can be taken on the ISP?

Comments are most welcomed.

Update: You can read more on this at : http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/486176

Is anyone here using the 4MBps Streamyx package that was launched recently? I’m curious as to whether its any good. You can read some comments on LiewCF’s blog. Apparently it is only for 12,000 people.

However, no one of the commentators there (or anyone I know of) seems to be on that package. Anyone who is actually using the 4MBps Streamyx package is welcome to share their experiences in the comments field or by e-mailing us.

PS: We met up with one of the WiMax winners, and they are interested in doing something with this site. Look out for some exciting new changes soon!

This might either be good news…or bad news. Now that Dato Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, has stepped down as Gerakan chief, do you think he will be able to be as openly critical of the telcos? Remember - he retains his post as the Energy, Water and Communications minister. Or would it make him even more fearless in his criticism, as he has nothing to lose anymore? We will wait and see.

FYI to the readers: Read this article, there is a recent quote by Dato Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik:

“Now you know why we distribute the WiMAX licences to the small companies… the big fellows, including the TM already have the 2.5GHz. Why you want the 2.3 GHz when you can roll out the WiMAX via 2.5GHz?,”

Yes, apparently this is how he actually speaks in real life. Kudos to that. It’s a lot clearer than most would dare to be. The awardance of WiMax licenses is to smaller companies is good news. To understand the motivation behind licenses and why its such a big deal (and a good thing did TM didn’t get 2.3 GHz) - it doesn’t just allow you to do something. Remember, if you get it, no one else can get it, even if you do nothing with it. Also, if you decide to do anything with it you can resell it or outsource the implementation…

From the same article, Celcom’s Chief executive officer Datuk Seri Shazalli Ramly was quoted saying:“There is a window of opportunity for us to grab before the WiMax players come in. We have to grab the window as quickly as possible.”

Let’s hope everyone grabs the window, including TM and the other WiMax players, if only for the sake of competition. TM, we’re quite confident you can launch WiMax. After all, you already have an impressive track record in rolling out things - About 80% of of Malaysian broadband consumers use TM Streamyx, even if it is oversubscribed, under capacity, inefficient, and with terms of service that shortchange your customers. We’re confident of you accomplishing the same with TM WiMax! When you roll out, consumers now have will have the amazing freedom of surfing slowly like Streamyx users…but without wires! Amazing! Hooray!

More seriously though, lets look at this article and take note of the things that should happen - and let’s see what will.

- All the winners of the WiMax license are expected to quickly roll out the service to 25 percent of the population in the area given to them by end of this year, with a service provision of at least 1MBps at affordable rates.

- It is expected that they will be able to roll services to at least 40 percent of the population in the areas given to them

- Each of the companies is expected to invest between RM250 million and RM300 million in the first three years of the WiMax implementation.

In closing, dear Dato Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik - please make sure of these things happen. You have been one of the most vocal (not to mention “official”) critics of the people responsible for slow rollout in broadband here, and for that we thank you, and urge you not to stop.

A lot of people here (well, maybe not here, but in Malaysia) don’t really know what it is exactly you do, but wouldn’t it be great if you left a legacy as the guy who fought for better Malaysian broadband services, and won? We hope to immortalize you one day as “Bapa Jalurlebar”…

We’ll be arranging interviews with key personnel of companies that have won the WiMax bid. One we’re meeting next week, time permitting.

Who/which companies would you like us to interview?

And what questions would you like to ask? Eg, When will WiMax be available for my home? Pricing? Etc. Leave your comments, and it will help determine the interview. Thanks!