Many efforts had been highly publicised for the development of telecommunication in Malaysia and become the global ICT hub. One of the long sighted vision from the government was to embrace technology as a leapfrog for Malaysia to be internationally competitive, thus we have heard of the huge program called the
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) ,along with the formation of the
National IT Council (NITC), the
National Broadband plan (NBP) and the recently, a program by the
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (SKMM) called
MyICMS. In a nutshell, the push from the government since 1996 had been very bullish... but where are we now... in 2010 with all these initiatives? Lets look at the Broadband industry, the most basic requirement to realize the national ICT dreams.
Firstly, lets summarize the national broadband plan, SKMM had provided the overview of what the whole plan covers and its objectives. The image below is the shortest summary that can be presented, and please take note of the red box in the image.
Secondly, there were many licenses, grants and government support to ensure that the telecommunication infrastructure is being implemented and services to be provided to the people of Malaysia. Malaysia now have Celcom Axiata, Maxis, DiGi and U Mobile that offers mobile based wireless broadband services; Wimax operators are Packet One, YTL, Asia Space and Red Tone that offers the fixed/mobile wireless broadband based on Wimax technology; the all infamous Telekom Malaysia that offers fixed adsl and HSBB services... others are Jaring and TimeDotCom.... all these are the big names that were supposed to provide broadband to the masses.(there are also other smaller operators that are offering the same, but lets focus on these companies).
With the two points above, the question should be, do we have the national broadband plan and service availability to the masses? The answer is, sadly... NO!!!
Lets take a look at the service from Telekom Malaysia, the monopoly for ADSL service nationwide. In the simplest way to answer how they have performed, you can just google the brandname "Streamyx" and you will see the list of unending complaints. In addition, a nickname was assigned to them.
Now, the mobile operators had been heavily involved in the Broadband offerings as well. The following is how they did in the early offerings of the service.
Maxis started offering simple usage based and unlimited package
Celcom highlighted their comparison chart for their 3G broadband package (usage based and also unlimited package)
And their basic and heavy user package :
DiGi came in bullish as the late comer to the broadband bandwagon and started shouting better offers to all...
Now, shortly after the all the shouts and the cheap packages from all operators, the consumers are slowly warming up to the concept of broadband lifestyle... more connected devices flood the market such as netbooks and iphones and other smartphone devices... consumers are demanding more and more services. But what happens? The telcos could not meet the demand. And what do they do when they cannot meet the demand? they penalize the consumers.
Throttling : The internet is heavily throttled. Previously peer-to-peer sharing such as bit torrents were the ones that were throttled, now they have included direct download sites and many other web based services.
Abolished unlimited packages : This is the craziest one.. now it COSTS more to have access. It feels like the entire progress is now thwarted and Malaysian telecommunication services are regressing.
Take a look at the more recent packages :
Maxis slowly cutting the GBs from monthly package
Broadband repackaging :
Most broadband operators are now doing the following package format :
a) Highspeed package package : high download speed (3.6mbps) with small monthly quota
b) Unlimited daily/weekly package : low download speed (384kbps)
c) "upgraded" the services packages for the "unlimited broadband" package to a limited package (they actually send a congratulation letter to subscribers to inform them that they are being scammed... its amazing!!!)
With all the complaints, the frustrations posted in blogs and forums... why is there no further improvement?
Will SKMM take the lead and resolve this issue?
Didn't all the operators presented annual profits from year to year?
From year to year, I have seen these telcos receive awards for "Best Operator", "Best Service Provider"... maybe they should have the awards to say..
"Best Service Monopoly"... "Best Cheating Ideas"..."Best Broadband Scam Packages"
All I can see is, Broadband services is getting to be one of the biggest scam that the country is experiencing.
