Telcos should work together to improve country's broadband penetration

I took this picture at the Pizza Hut junction near TTDI. You can see the competition is heating up in the broadband space in Malaysia. The current marketing campaign by broadband providers, notably from P1 seems to be attracting alot of attention. If you follow them on Twitter, you can see how they use the new media to make the connection with the customers. It's common sense (unfortunately uncommon for many) when a service provider shows leadership by embracing all these media channels that they transport in their network.

Competition is heating up. In the end, consumers obviously win. However, looking at the current marketing campaign, it's clear that they're churning the same set of customers. When Telco A attacks, Telco B naturally retaliates. How do we want to grow broadband penetration when Telcos are fighting for the same customer? I don't understand when one says that they uphold government's aspiration of increasing country's broadband penetration but at the same time asking customers to 'cut' relationship with the competing service provider??

Different technologies or comms media should be optimse to provide coverage according to demographic and geographic needs. Currently, we see these technologies competing in the same segment and geographic area. If resources are being used efficiently, i.e matching demand with the right supply, I really think we could increase both coverage and take up quickly. I'm not saying they shouldn't compete at all, but perhaps be given some set of priorities.

For this to happen, I reckon there must be some level of cooperation between players and of course, the regulator plays a major role. In the next generation network or an all IP industry, the economics works best when there's interworking between operators. The legacy circuit switch network economics was built upon a scarce resource transport technology. So telco shares capacity only at a premium. But in NGN, capacity comes in abundance. By working together, this capacity can be made even bigger. Competing on price only pushes the industry back to the commodity field. If we want to move up the value chain faster, interworking is key to optimise expertise and resources.

High Speed Broadband

If you live in TTDI, you might have noticed new terminal boxes installed on telecommunication poles. If you look closely at the box, it says 'FTTH' with TM company logo. For your information, this equipment is part of the TM-Gov't HSBB co-investment. In other words, the telco is wiring up the access network with Fiber links. Previously, our broadband is delivered using DSL technology on copper access network.

Current speed range on DSL is anywhere between 256kbps to 4Mbps and service is based on best effort. With Fiber To The Home (FTTH) however, surfing speed can be anywhere between 10Mbps to up to 1Gbit/s depending on end terminal installed at premises!

The FDP (fiber distribution point) picture that I took here is on a pole where currently my house phone is connected too. So I guess, when one day this new HSBB service is available, they will drop a fiber wire from this box to the wall terminal at home. With FTTH, I have a dedicated fiber access connection to the cyber world. Unlike WIMAX or 3G where you are actually sharing capacity with other 'roamers' because transmission is limited by spectrum or frequencies.

Now with 100Mbps (potentially) to the house, one could not really imagine what it can do if you just think about surfing the internet. Seriously, if you're just surfing, maybe 1Mbps is more than enough. But imagine if you can get video on demand or IPTV. Astro contents are being broadcasted and you have no control over viewing slots. But with IPTV, you control what and when to watch. It's on demand high definition TV! I hope TM will work out good content to be made available. ASTRO now have a serious competitor. They should think twice when offering packages.

Raya feast..

My parents, brothers, sister and close relatives came by the house for raya recently. We had dinner, played fireworks (klcc scale mind you) and something special for dessert. Durian!!!! hahahha.

first taste sensation.. "durian apa nih?? unbelievable!"

These are highly saught after durian species we're talking here. Everyone (well almost laa, my grandma is not a fan) had a sensational shock to their taste buds. Lazat, lemak dan berkrim..

second, third serving is guaranteed...

my brother Helmi sampai beristighfar..

And you can find them infront of Pasaraya Tmn Tun. Yes it's pricey (about RM20/kg before nego) but you'll get more than what you're paying for. Believe you me, it's absolutely amazing.

Something's wrong with my iphone

I can't make or receive calls or connect to the internet using my iphone. After Celcom's network went down last week, until today, I couldn't even detect celcom's signal. Probably after they've reset their nodes, some databases must have went corrupted. Or maybe it has to do with my Iphone. You see my iphone is locked to Telstra's network and I use a turbo sim to be able to use Celcom's service. So what to do..

I gave up. I decided to get myself a Blackberry. Now I'm waiting for Celcom's call for me to collect the new smartphone. Meanwhile, I'm exploring to 'unlock' the Iphone. A day trip to Low Yat might solve my problem..

After registering myself for Blackberry service, I went to the optical shop and got myself a pair of new glasses. Hmm, its long overdue really. I should have changed my glasses long time ago. My left eye now is 850 and right side is 750. Makin blur aku ni. But even then I still couldn't get perfect vision. As long as I'm comfortable, that's OK. Oh yes, the glasses matches my new Blackberry Curve too! hehehe