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

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.

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…

I’ve added a new poll to the site (right hand corner) - Streamyx Users - How many gigabytes of data do you use per month?

TMNet has recently starting to put the amount of data you used per month in its monthly bill (in Megabytes (MB). 1024 MB = 1 Gigabyte (GB)). You can read more at the Lowyat forums.

Apparently, 87% of you visitors to this site use TM Net Streamyx (995 votes). It’ll be great if you could vote on this new poll - I’m coming up with some calculations and observations on TM Net’s network capacity and subscriber data usage. You can see how this might be useful to lobby for better service.

Quick note: To all the people reaching this site searching for terms like “tmnet”, “throttling”, “p2p”, “bittorrent”, “blocked”, “streamyx blocks bittorrent”, and various other permutations - yes, it is apparent that P2P is being throttled and blocked by TM Net currently. Some hints: There are some ways around it, but you will still get very very low speed. And yes, you will get better results using local trackers.
Also, some users are telling me they have difficulty accessing the iTunes music store. Are you Skype and Steam users affected too? More news soon.

“We are not against our customers using P2P. However, it is an unfair situation which needs to be addressed, as we cannot upgrade our infrastructure (merely) for the benefit of the minority,” he said.

Read the full article at The Star Online Tech Central

Peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic is choking up local broadband lines with 20% of users utilising 80% of the total bandwidth, according to Internet service provider (ISP) TM Net Sdn Bhd.
Dr Fadhullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, general manager of TM Net’s corporate and strategy services, said that as the number of local broadband subscribers increases, more users are expected to use P2P applications such as Kazaa and BitTorrent to transfer files online.

….“Such applications are often left on all day so they use much more bandwidth compared to users who merely use the Internet to surf or chat,” he said.

….“We are not against our customers using P2P. However, it is an unfair situation which needs to be addressed, as we cannot upgrade our infrastructure (merely) for the benefit of the minority,” he said.

Read the full article at The Star Online: TechCentral

More discussion on the topic:
P2P traffic clogging broadband (from tmnet) - Tech ARP Forums

TMNet Blames P2P - Danny Foo Made Simple
But the headlines and what he said about P2P just had to tick me off as a TM Streamyx user….

TmNet Streamyx = Really TmNut
They didnt even tried to upgrade their service instead just blame on user hogging their bandwith with P2P downloading activities….

Azereus : Bad ISPs
Here’s a list of ISPs that are known to cause trouble for Bittorrent clients or P2P in general and the reason why.