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.

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

Interesting news - Maxis announced the launch of broadband services for homes on the 15th of September. Â It appears to be a combination of 3G, HSDPA (High Speed Data Packet Access), and EDGE (Data rate for GSM Evolution). Service will presumably be best in the designated High Speed 3G areas (exact areas not announced yet). Prices will be revealed September 26.

It all seems like pretty good news - however from the looks of things, isn’t it already launched?

So it seems that the service has already previously launched? Let’s hope this new “relaunch” also signals a change in service quality, not just a push to get more subscribers and profits? Judging by the headline in The Star, does it also signal that they have previously launched (since early 2005), but they’re only set (as in properly prepared, finally ready)Â to launch it for real now? I guess we’ll see what happens over the next few months…

We’ve updated the coverage map to include coverage for Celcom 3G and Maxis 3G. Click on the respective tab to turn it on. Looking forward to your comments on service performance and which area you’re in (eg - is the service satisfactory in the places covered, are there coverage areas missing, etc) - remember, this is in the context of internet connectivity via 3G Card to a laptop/PC, not through a 3G phone.

Since we only cover Klang Valley at the moment, this is worth a note: In terms of overall coverage, Maxis has wider urban coverage (Klang Valley), however, Celcom has wider nationwide coverage across Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, Sarawak). You can verify this by looking at the full coverage areas at their respective sites : Celcom 3G and Maxis 3G.

On an irrelevant note, now that we’ve got more colors…turning on all the coverage areas has a rather artistic “modern art” feel to it. Try it for yourself…

He said Time dotCom intended to offer a new concept of 3G broadband based on the fixed-mobile convergence platform, utilising the latest High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSPDA) or 3.5G technology.
Wan Muhamad said the company was testing the performance of the HSPDA network to assess how it reacted on different demand patterns.
He said HSPDA would provide speed as high as 14 megabits per second, which was much higher than the current speed offered by Maxis or Celcom.

Read the full article at The Edge Daily.