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. “Â …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.
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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

After having dug to a depth of 1000 meters last year, Swedish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 1000 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Swedes, in the weeks that followed, English scientists dug to a depth of 2000 meters and shortly after headlines in the UK newspapers read; English archaeologists have found traces of 2000 year old fiber-optic cable and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech digital communications network a thousand years earlier than the Swedes.

One week later, Malaysian newspapers reported the following: After digging as deep as 5000 meters in padi fields in Kedah, Malaysian scientists have found absolutely nothing. They, therefore, have concluded that 5000 years ago, Malaysian’s inhabitants were already using wireless technology.

From the Reapfield Technology Blog.

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.

 Translation: We have another satellite in space now, and that’s a good thing for broadband here. Malaysia Boleh! Soon we’re going to have a bolehnaut and teh tarik in space too, but that’s a different story.

Translation: This can shape up to be a significant challenge to TM Net Streamyx’s market dominance. As you might notice from this Wikipedia link on Maxis, they basically own Measat-3. Although the main purpose of the satellite is to extend the coverage of sister company Astro’s satellite services, it is very likely that the broadband capabilities of the new satellite will be marketed as under the Maxis Broadband umbrella rather than as an Astro broadband thing. Maxis already has very good dominance in the urban mobile telecommunications sector, so getting existing mobile customers to subscribe to a broadband package shouldn’t be too far a stretch, rather than trying to convince Astro watchers to get broadband. This is purely my speculation, and adding credence to it is the fact that Astro did have a short-lived trial of internet services, but no news has been hard since.

Translation: No more coverage issues. No 5KM radius DSLAM limitation. No more not enough ports problems. No more reliance on old copper cabling. Rather than try to depend on the underground, broadband can now come from the heavens above, and anywhere with a clear line of sight to the sky should be able to receive a satellite broadband signal. Bonus: The launch vehicle of the satellite is called the “Proton Breeze M”. No, it’s not a new car model from national carmarker Proton Berhad, but rather, this link should explain it.

Let’s end with two questions:
1. Do you think satellite broadband internet services are already available currently, as of today, right now? Yes or No? (This one I know the answer to. It might not be what you think. Btw, if the answer is yes, it’s not Measat providing it. If it’s no, then no one lah. What do you think?)
2. If satellite broadband were already available here…how much would you pay per month for a good, steady 1-2MBps connection?

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 made even more changes to the map, adding in AirZed WiMax and eB Technologies MyWave. Yes, the shapes are really that odd (at least that’s what we’ve managed to get from their site). Chances are that they cover slightly more, but it was cropped off from the map, so we’ve transposed it exactly as shown on the site. You can see the original coverage pages at the following urls: AirZed WiMax Coverage and eB Technologies MyWave.

Any suggestions on who we should add next? In general, we aim to list the providers with the most significant coverage first, followed by the rest.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of Terabeam Inc, it and Palette Multimedia Bhd launched a WiMAX Forum-certified base station unit – the Tsunami MP.16 3500 – in Kuala Lumpur last week.

 Read the full article at The Star Online Tech Central