Tag-Archive for » malaysia «

The Malaysian PIKOM PC Fair experience

08
Aug 2010

UPDATED: @Marauderz has a video of the PC Fair Experience

I remember the first time i went to the PC Fair. Wasn’t in KL Convention Center, it was at the famed PWTC. I remember buying some RAM for my PC that day. Eventually it had some problems and i had to travel all the way to Puchong to get it replaced. At that time, the price was a steal, but eventually i realized, its not always about price, but TCO (total cost of ownership).

PC Fair was touted as “best bargains” of the techno-world for consumers in Malaysia. I believe that was true, until for the past 5 years. Commercialism reigned supreme, with “bargains” splurged everywhere.

This past few years have been ridiculous to even think of going for PC Fair. Firstly, the amount of people that would be making a bee line (sorry, stampede is more like it). Coupled with expensive parking charges of KLCC (one would say take public transport, taxi is still equally expensive and busses aren’t realistic if you plan to buy something that doesn’t fit into your pockets, imagine alighting the bus with a laser printer).

Thats fine, but look at how PC Fair is managed. You are REQUIRED to enter from a certain floor, so that you are FORCED to visit the vendors booth (which most often than not, something that you may not be interested). You’d be going through at least 3-4 floors before you reach ground-zero where the real bargain hunting begins. If you try to get directly to ground-zero, friendly KLCC guards will ensure that your mission is a failure!

I ask you, dear sir/madam, are you really getting a bargain?

Based on a recent survey from friends who visited PC Fair, prices aren’t cheap, you’d get probably RM20 less than the real selling price. (E.g. Papago GPS retails at RM669 was sold at RM649). Imagine the hassle and amount of money that you’d spend JUST to get RM20 savings. Not to mention the obscure locate of the shop that you’d need to be aware in order for you to make warranty claims IF your spoils becomes spoiled! Include how much you paid for parking, petrol wasted in the traffic jam, eating expensive food in KLCC, and much more! But then again, recent times have made Malaysians to adopt kiasuism!

Laptops are a funny beast. I recall visiting a friendly vendor (who shall not be named) who sold me a laptop based on the PC Fair prices 2 weeks after the fair. Its like buying flight tickets from Travel Fair, without having to go for the fair itself (yeap, i do that to avoid the crowd!).

My take on this, PC Fair has become ridiculous. For the trouble i have to go through to buy something at a discounted rate, i can get it in Low Yat or even Digital Mall at a very comfortable, convenient way. Plus, i know which shop i bought my spoils, and if it does get spoiled, i know exactly where to go for warranty claims! As the great @SNIIFFIT said over Ais Kosong (D36) in Pappa Rich today – Everyday’s a PC Fair at Low Yatt!

Category: Uncategorized  Tags: , , ,  One Comment

Celcom DiGi MoU – What does it mean to average joe like you

16
Jun 2010

Very recently both DiGi and Celcom signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on infrastructure sharing.
This news generated a lot of attention from the industry and also the consumers. Within minutes, blog postings were up
trying to dissect the the move, and unfortunately due to lack of understanding had posed the negative connotation to the whole affair.

The MoU is to meet 2 aims
- For Celcom and DiGi to start infrastructure sharing at company level
- For Telenor and Axiata to start infrastructure sharing at group level

So here, you’d ask, what is infrastructure sharing?

Infrastructure sharing, in a simplistic view is sharing common delivery platforms. This means that a Celcom owned site can be used by DiGi and vice versa. Sharing of infrastructure can be deemed as such

- Sharing of sites – meaning that a physical site owned by the telco can be shared to host infrastructure such as BSC/MSC components in there
- RAN Sharing – RAN refers to Radio Access Network, providing access at the radio network layer for instant “lighting up” of the site. It requires all telcos to use same RAN vendors (i.e. Huawei, NSN, E//)
- Antennae sharing – Sharing the antennae of the tower to boost signal or to increase coverage.
- Backhaul sharing – Sharing of core transport such as site-to-site fiber/microwave infrastructure. This allows existing “dark-fibers” to be utilised to its full capacity.

Other ancilliary benefits would be that the individual telco now has a good rationale to “right-size” their field force operations since each site will be managed by the respective telcos.

How does this benefit Celcom? Celcom traditionally depends on existing TM infrastructure, which is now split between TM fixed line, TM FTTH, Streamyx and other wholesale and corporate usage. As such, the infrastructure would have been stretched thin and may not scale based on what Celcom wants. With the sharing in place, Celcom is able to expand their site and without having high CAPEX and leverage on DiGi’s network.

How does this benefit DiGi? DiGi would have access to Celcom’s well publisized whole malaysia coverage. However this would involve either buying backhaul bandwidth from Celcom/TM or building additional infrastructure.

How about the users? We’ve seen users complain that the sharing might bring down the quality of the network. That will not be the case. Each telco is allocated a spectrum band for both upstream and downstream (tx-transmitting/rx-receiving).This band separation allows the telco to transmit their RF signals without any interference to the other telcos. So, sharing sites will not impact performance of the network, it makes better utilization of the equipments/investments in place.

This makes perfect sense, as explained by Maxis CEO Sandip Das. Ability to increase coverage and capacity, at a fraction of a cost.

Rosy? Probably, but there are pitfalls. Sites being shared may be subject to fierce negotiations, as telcos may still see dominance in some coverage areas as strategic strength. In order for telcos to open up, the only differentiating factor for consumers to choose the service (all else being equal) would be the quality of the network, pricing, and multitude of services that fits the consumer’s apetite. But unfortunately, in Malaysia we are far from having the position of “all else being equal”.

Category: Malaysian Telecommunications  Tags: , , , , ,  2 Comments

To reduce internet cost in Malaysia

14
Jun 2010

An article was recently published about MCMC’s trying to reduce the price of broadband for Malaysian consumers. With the advent of FTTH (Fiber To The Homes) as one of the key investment, the rollout has been slow, spotty and not to mention, problematic.

So, why is Internet cost in Malaysia so expensive (compared to other countries like Korea/US)?

The fault lies on the government, users and ISP.

Why is this the fault of the Government? Well, if you ever had access to the preferred destination of the netizens, its usually Facebook/Twitter which is hosted in US. In fact, a good 75% of total Internet traffic is outbound (US and others). We Malaysians suck at local content. While local sites (Mkini, TMI to name a few) hold the fort well, traffic generated by users for local content is still too little, and Malaysia isn’t developing enough international contents for consumption. If you look at Korea, other countries such as USA wants to get transit access to Korea due to its extensive user/gaming platform. This reduces the cost of transport, which in turn provides a cost saving for users as a result. Another reason why the cost is expensive is that Malaysia does not own any submarine cables. Yes people, your internet traffic travels through fiber optics which is planted deep on the seabed. If we own a few of these cable networks (and folks, it ain’t CHEAP), cost of transport can be significantly reduced.

So now, why is it the fault of the users? Very simply, Malaysian users are consumers of international traffic more than local traffic. Look at the high usage of sites such as Facebook/Twitter/Friendster, all of it hosted usually in the USA. As such, we need more transit links to US rather than anywhere else. Please remember that the ISP needs to lease fiber from Malaysia, through the oceanic fiber network (APCN/SEA-ME-WE) to USA. Not near, neither will it be cheap.

So, is the ISP at fault? Yes they are too. Most ISP now sells asynchronous bandwidth package. This means that your download speed is not the same as your upload speeds. ISPs tend to push the contention ratio in a bit to make money. This further squeezes the pipe and user experience. Failing which, ISP promises faster speed, at a more higher cost, but still fall short on deliver.

So, we know that everyone needs to play a role, how to move forward?

  • Local content will be the SOLE BEST option Malaysia has. The govt should promote more local contents, ability to host infrastructure in MyIX as a colocation services for faster local access (ISP’s may not agree as this gets into their business)
  • Invest in Internet infrastructure, such as fiber networks. New fiber networks (Trinity) even has Google as one of the investors, the government should look at ways to bring cheaper uplink access, in order for the cost to be turned back to users
  • Open competition for local ISPs instead of monopoly. The very reason why MyIX is in existence is due to the dominance of telecommunications monopoly, causing split inconsistent routes for internet traffic.

Hopefully someone from MCMC reads this and does something about it.

Category: Malaysian Telecommunications  Tags: , ,  Leave a Comment

Why mobile coverage in your place suck – part 1

04
Jun 2010

Mobile coverage is an age old issue. Since the day of telecommunications began spreading its wave, cell planning and coverage management has always been a key issue. That’s why most telcos have Network/Radio Planning teams to manage this beast. The scenarios described here may have occured in the past, but do consider this as the closest issues. There is no one reason why you have issues with mobile coverage, but to bring to light why you might endure such sufferings.

Any organization will look for opportunities to make money. Telcos are no exception to this expections. Exploring into a new housing area starts off the race to get the area “lighted up”. This can be in the form of just mobile coverage, or all in one provider (fixed & wireless solutions). Apartments are notorious in this and often have strict selection of telco providing service. That’s why only one telco can provide service in an apartment.

Back to our story, just say Telco A got the bid. They start setting up towers to have coverage in the area. All seems well. But wait, trouble ensues in months to come. A letter was received from the local municipal stating that the location did not get approval for a cell tower site, hence the tower has to be taken down. Telco is often given less time to take down the site, otherwise, the equipment will be forfeited/sealed. Often, relocation takes time and can run into 7 digit cost.

Site now gets relocated, and gets approval from local city council. But guess what, after a few months, a local resident looks at the tower and thinks he’s having headache because of the tower. He makes a complaint to local council and cc’s MCMC in the process. Everyone starts jumping and telco has to move.

By this time, there is no suitable site, so telcos have no choice but to keep the area off air. But then, once the tower sites get removed, folks there realise that mobile coverage goes down south and makes another complaint.

One main issue any telco faces, is the user themselves. Ask MCMC, they’d share the same sentiment.

Category: Malaysian Telecommunications  Tags: , ,  Leave a Comment

Threat landscape for Malaysia (2009)

27
Apr 2010

These information was obtained from Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (http://www.microsoft.com/sir)

The MSRT detected malware on 4.0 out of every 1,000 computers scanned in Malaysia during 2H09 (a CCM score of 4.0—down from 5.1 in 1H09 and lower than the average worldwide CCM of 7.0). Figure 128 and Figure 129 list the malware and potentially unwanted software categories and families detected by all Microsoft desktop anti-malware products in Malaysia in 2H09.

Notes and observations:
• The threat landscape in Malaysia was dominated by malware, which accounted for 72.2 percent of all threats detected on infected computers in 2H09, up from 69.6 percent in 1H09.
• The most common category in Malaysia was Worms, which accounted for 27.8 percent of all infected computers, down from 28.1 percent in 1H09.
• The second-most common category in Malaysia was Miscellaneous Trojans, which includes all trojan families that are not classified as downloaders/droppers or backdoors, and accounted for 16.5 percent of all infected computers, down from 17.0 percent in 1H09.
• The category Trojan Downloaders & Droppers was significantly lower in Malaysia than in many other countries and regions around the world at 10.9 percent, up slightly from 10.4 percent in 1H09.

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