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This is a BOLEH land. The leaders keep talking cock and we rakyat keep sucking ****

Simple reason - Maxis is not planning to increase its international link capacities. Remember the canned astro's satellite internet service? Same reason.

Oy thats a bit sneaky.
The "packages" description says nothing about bandwidth caps when this is regularly described by most broadband providers (if there's one) around the world.

That sucks. I would never sign up for such an expensive package but so much limitation!

Look at their package
http://www.maxis.com.my/personal/hsdpa/wireless_packages.asp

With the 3GB bandwidth curb for the subscriber, the premium package pay RM30 more than basic subscriber per month for slightly faster access.

On the other hand, it seems MCMC is silent over the news of WiMAX. Since Maxis is NOT using WiMAX, I smell something fishy is brewing between MCMC and Maxis.

Hmmm, let's check chronology of the wireless broadband events

May 16 - MCMC cancelled WiMax tender

july 20 - MCMC say the tender recalle because "commisions doesn't follow the specification".

September 26 - Maxis To Spend RM700 Mln for Broadband Services

dejavu?

I think there's no point in having a premium package with double the speed, but still the same bandwidth cap. It's like you have a bigger pipe, but still have the same amount of water rationed by JBA.

It's very easy for Maxis to loudly claim "Fair Use" for other users in their policy. Then again, if a subscriber is not getting what the package promised (speed, bandwidth, connection stability), is that fair use to him as a user? At that time, Maxis will probably say - "oh best effort mah"

3 Gbyte (2.4x10^10 bits) per month is effectively 9 kbps. What a crap!

Who would have thought this is cause and effect, effect from one cause - a 4,000 pound sterling pair of shoes from London?!

The rakyat have no idea the rubbish that has flowed under the bridges of this country.

It's time to give up.

If Maxis wants to encourage "fair usage", a better approach is give RMXX rebate for their so called "valued" customers if their usage is less than XX MBytes.

This also means the RM98/month package is worth the bandwidth paid for. But, if the usage is less than a preset threshold, then the so called valued customer will be rebated. So actually if I use less, I pay less but RM98 should be the max Maxis shall charge the customers.

it is not unusual for countries to hold back wimax because local operators have invested heavily on 3G. i read it happened in europe.

Firstly, broadband in M’sia is too slow, too expensive to begin with.

Secondly, I am a self-appointed defender for all P2P technologies. I believe that P2P is the catalyst for a ‘Star Trek Economy’, the future where you can beam teh tarik kurang manis instead of making it conventionally…yes I don’t make sense now but wait for my book (don’t hold your breath though :-).

So yeah I’m one of the users that hog 70% of the bandwidth by staying online 24/7…hell I make your favorite VCD seller look like a Sunday schoolboy with my collection of mp3s and DVD rip. Ask me why I do it and I will say this...”it’s the future baby, live with it”.

If you want my lengthy explanation please click here.

After reading it (depending on your politics), you will either feel mad for losing precious minutes of your life or feel a bit more enlighten about P2P. Either way the market will show you, sooner or later.

hinzelmann, because Digi can't secure a 3G license, only Maxis is offering 3G at the moment. MCMC under no obligation to protect Maix as business risk is none of their f*cking business.

Bare in mind that 3G license is only issue out this year March 2006!

MCMC has asking the WiMAX tender on May 2006. But to MCMC suprise(perhaps dissapoinment), those did not get the 3G able to make up the THICK documents in 2 months.

Let's see the whole WiMAX thingy
2004 - IEEE approved the WiMAX 802.16.
2005 - WiMAX installation arised around the world.

2006 March - Maxis and some "interesting parties" secure 3G license.

2006 May - MCMC open up WiMAX tender

2006 July - MCMC cancel WiMAX tender

2006 Sept - Maxis offer 3G broadband services.

All I can say is "what the f*ck".

say it to the man, naz!

moo_t,

it is not unusual for countries to hold back wimax because local operators have invested heavily on 3G. i read it happened in europe.

moo_t,

Maxis ISNT the only 3G licensee in malaysia, we have both Maxis and Celcom who have LIVE 3G networks running in Malaysia.

In fact, maxis upgraded it's 3G to 3.5G HSDPA early this year and if you read star, Celcom just recently announced upgrade to 3.5G HSDPA.

FYI, you may already know, MITV will be launching next year, full 3G only services, and i cant remember if they also took the HSDPA upgrade option to 3.5G.

Secondly, 3G licenses were not offered only in March this year. It was the 2nd round of 3G licenses which was offered in March, where Time & Mitv won the license. The first round was already done couple of years back and Maxis and Celcom already went live on 3G for more then 1 year ago :)

As for Wimax cancellation, i take a nuetral stand. I do accept that we are capable of putting up a sub-standard RFP to vendors. Its very important for the government to set the appropriate QOS criteria when offering a license as in Malaysia, ppl dont pay high prices for it!

Hence, if there was a screw up in the RFP, then its only right for MCMC to revoke it! When the new RFP comes out, then one can compare apple to apple and proceed to make accusation if the cancellation was bias towards the Wimax bidders.

I personally feel Wimax needs another year or 2 to fix some pressing open issues aroung the technology!

Having said this, please becarefull when making incorrect statements... you can land urself in trouble dude :) ...

whats more pressing is the ammount if Yes men's around supporting false statements ...hehe

cheers mate!

This is what Maxis is actually saying:

"YOU CANNOT DOWNLOAD MOVIES AND MUSIC FOR FREE BUT PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PAY ME HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY BY CLICKING HERE".

Well, if the gov intends to increase to 75% household penetration in broadband by 2010, they'd better f*ckg make sure the providers upgrade their capacity rather than penalising the users. It looks like the end users has always been the target of victimisation.

With the 3GB cap, it is just like a toy-broadband, it is expensive too.

Sigh, how can we compete with other country (again) with such a limited broadband access ?

We are definitely behind the Web2.0 wave.

we need more competition for service providers. dont know what the deal is now, whether there are restricted licenses, etc etc.

it cant be forever between, a provider that sucks, or one that is lame.

its the best of the worst gentleman.

(check out www.karipanas.blogspot.com)

There are times I feel Jeff Ooi is spot on when it comes to news and there are times I feel he's just blowing hot air. This is one of the times I feel he's blowing off hot air.

Any of you stop to think about what this service is? This ISN'T a replacement for StreamyX, NOR is it even in the same market segment. This is a mobile internet solution. It's a premium service targeted at people ON THE GO for who access to the internet is vital.

For instance, if you are a sales man and your need to be able to access your company’s online catalogue at all times, or an executive who needs to VPN into your company’s servers from an offsite location or if your run a business where it is critical your clients be able to reach you by e-mail and IM at all times then this service is for you.

In essence, this service is for when Internet access is MISSION CRITICAL, not a luxury. If you want to kick back on a Sunday afternoon and game, download the latest TV shows, music and/or even while your time away on YouTube, you need ADSL, not this service.

Viceice,

I beg to differ on that mate! HSDPA and mobile broadband is developed to give you high speed broadband capacity for ANYTHING! It should be and must be able to replace your ADSL!

If you had the chance to catch the demo why was running around cyberjaya, before Maxis signed the contract for HSDPA, you can see that the main thing which was being promoted by the supplier is Multi media & enriched communication, anywhere & everywhere (with 3G coverage) .....

For urgent pressing access on the GO as you mentioned, the standard 3G data rates are fast enough...you do not need HSDPA!

I beleive Maxis is very aware of the limitation of the bandwidth and want to avoid P2P traffic from eating up their wireless bandwidth! I wonder how long they can survive!

Perhaps when they have a 5MB upgrade sometime later in 2007, maxis may lapse this rule!

In the meantime, i'm disapointed, why should a consumer be so Hard up for their idiotic terms???

Viceice,

Maxis ADSL Broadband has the same terms and conditions. And I think
Maxis doesn't care if your access if mission critical or not, once you exceed 3GB, they will disconnect you.

I believe if you are involved in sales and you access your office online catalogue daily, it will hit the limit before the month ends. Probably, after you see your customers, you may go home to prepare and send a stack of thick documents to them. Perhaps you may also present them some impressive online video presentations that will affect your sales.

The bottom line is, maxis doesn't care if you are using 3G or ADSL, they track usage per account.

I think the policy is rather an "Unfair Policy". Do they care if I use it to perform an extremely important online video presentation to my customers? If the policy is to nail the P2P users, then I'd say maxis is not fair.

Maxis said you can write to them for excessive usage. They also said it's up to their discretion to charge or disapprove. They did not say under what condition they will not charge, so is it if I'm the relative then they don't charge? Maxis?

While I agree this technology has potential, to say that it can replace ADSL is wrong. This is simple because the technology relies on radio broadcasting to send data.

From a last mile perspective, as each end user has a dedicated physical connection to the ISP in ADSL, prolonged and full saturation of the line isn’t an issue, as you don’t have to share it with anyone else.

Where as in a packet radio situation, radio spectrum is a very limited resource. The allocated radio spectrum can only be split into so many discreet channels before distortion becomes a problem and each channel has to support not only one, but many users. To compound the matter further, because data is broadcast to the client, data can only be sent to one user at any given instance in time per channel.

So given the physical limitations of the system, you can imagine what would happen if a good chunk of users started requesting copious amounts of bulk data all at once.

All said however, I’ll agree that Maxis et all at still guilty of ‘Over promising and under delivering’ not to mention price gouging. Goes to show what happens when the monkeys in accounting and marketing run the show instead of the engineers.

hi jeff

in someway i am rather bewildered by the limited bandwidth per month ...

contents over the internet is growing. streaming online video for online classes would effectively seal the fate of the user for such limited bandwidth ...

instead of marketing the service based on price alone, it could only be fair to its users if MAXIS truthfully state the bandwidth that is limited to the package and to allow users to select one plan that suit their bandwidth ...

my client for one would want such a plan because they are looking at an alternative service to TMnet's SDSL service that charges them RM600 over a month with poor download speed especially when it comes to downloading emails with humongous attachment PDF/JPEG/media files. Incidentally, they are in the area of advertising and promotion with average 100 over emails a day and JPEG attachments of 4-5 megs per mail into his notebook while on the go ...

if so, this isn't helping the clients to be competetive at all

that's what you'll get without true competition ... without digi around, i think maxis service will be worse than now (without competition = without improvement) ... digi's excellent pre-paid package gave maxis headache whole year round ...

if the govn wanna protect these local player, they have to look at s'pore for guidance ... no doubt in s'pore it's the same local monopoly but the player is "EFFICIENT" in delivering the cost-effective services to it's consumers ... then only it's acceptable to the citizens ...

i doubt our internet penetration will achieve any major success which can be shout about unless and only unless the govn is serious about the global competitors out there ...

it's time to wake up mr prime minister and all the ministers !!!

http://stocktube.blogspot.com

Looks like we have no choice.... We HAVE to use TMNET although it is still not that good.

I have decided to BOYCOTT MAXIS BROADBAND until they take off such clauses

Yes, TMNET is bad. This weekend has been awful. My internet connection has been on the blink. It tries to connect but fails. It is worse than dial-up. At least dial-up you get a constant speed of 5kbps. :)

I don't think there's anything wrong with limiting the volume of data transmitted. It's just that 3GB is a bit little.

In Australia, I vaguely remember a 8GB cap but that was many years ago. After 8gb, you have to pay which I think is reasonable. You get fast ADSL as well.

Oh, and they were transparent about it. They didn't hide the fact in their T&Cs.

It's sad that we aren't allowed better ADSL services and telcos have to resort to 3G (even if it is the 'future') to capture the market.

I feel 3G is redundant at the moment. I noticed Malaysians like to offer 'new' technologies but it's just not necessary.

Plus, Malaysians aren't wealthy enough yet.

P2P is an integral part of the Internet. You can allow it but the users will have to pay for it.

But users won't pay for lousy services which is what Streamyx is providing currently.

The ones who make the most noise are those who are in the business of internet hoarding.

It is fair to cap the bandwidth but the service must be reliable. If you do chalk up additional bandwidth, then pay for it.

Monthly fees should be reduced if a capping system were to be employed. Maybe then Streamyx won't blame the leechers as much. Even if it's fun to play the blame game.

I believe the net hoarders are chalking up at least 20gb a month and that's a modest figure.

However, with the mood swings of our Streamyx connection, it is not our fault if we have to be connected at all times in order to achieve any form of normalcy. The amount of time one spends trying to connect to the internet is ridiculous.

By the way, you can substitute Streamyx with Maxis Broadband if you want in my little speech above. :) I'm just upset with Streamyx.

goks,
thanks for the correction. Here is the updated chronology

2002 - Maxis,Celcom,etc secure 3G license

2004 - IEEE approved the WiMAX 802.16.
2005 - WiMAX installation arised around the world.

July 1 2005 - Maxis roll out 3G
2006 March - some "interesting parties" secure 3G license.

2006 May - MCMC open up WiMAX tender

2006 July - MCMC cancel WiMAX tender

2006 Sept - Maxis offer 3G broadband services.

As I have mentioned, MCMC under no obligation to help Telco to make money. So what is the hassle to claim "because telco invest heavily in 3G"?

And please take note that, 3G telco currently are investing REDUNDANT station since they didn't say anything about "share network". Since the competition is already there, what is the fuss to get another player e.g. WiMAX?

BTW, this is Maxis 3G coverage site
http://www.maxis.com.my/3g/coverage_local.asp

I have streamyx and it sucks. At most times, I have to endure speeds slower than a 56Kbps dial up modem, and I know this for real because I have a download meter monitoring the speed. But what can I do? There is only one broadband provider - TMnet

Now, this is no longer the case. Kudos to Maxis for introducing broadband and the fair use policy!

We need to treasure our bandwidth. Our bandwidth is a shared resource and those hogging our bandiwdth should really be paying more for it. Not inconveniencing the rest of the 87% of streamyx users having to endure downloads at snail 's speed! Have a read of the Streamyx user group meeting minutes (http://www.friedbeef.com/2006/09/16/highlights-from-the-tmnet-streamyx-user-group-meeting/). 13% of users are using 72% of the bandwidth. In other words, in P2P speak 13% are leeching off the rest of us.

I say make them pay more for it! At least that way, streamyx can provide better service for the rest of us.

As for Maxis 3GB limit, I hear they are not actively enforcing it. It is merely an option that they can use to prevent abuse of their system.

By and large, they are not alone in introducing such policies. Here are some examples:

O2, UK:
Fair usage policy applies, and average monthly usage is expected to be below 1024MB. O2 reserves the right to apply extra charges or to withdraw the Data Max 1024 service from any individual at any time in the case of suspected overuse or abuse of the service

T-Mobile, UK:
T-Mobile defines fair use as total UK data use (both sent and received) of up to 2GB per month. T-Mobile may contact customers who exceed this volume of data in two (or more) consecutive months in any six month period to ask them to reduce their usage.

Virgin ADSL Broadband, UK
Virgin.net Broadband Plan Three - £14.99 a month
Plan Three offers up to 1 Mbps (megabit per second) line speeds, which is perfect if you're new to broadband but don't want to sign a 12 month contract. Its 3 GB monthly download allowance is ideal if you want a fast connection to surf the Net and send emails without tying up your phone line. And don't worry, if you choose Plan Three and decide it's not quite right you can easily switch to another Plan for free.

The Maxis HSDPA 3G broadband package is definitely a substitute for Streamyx as they claim to be the first in the world to offer HSDPA to residents (by the way Korea has launched HSDPA for quite some time). Again an erroneous claim by Maxis.

I think the limitation of 3Gb in surfing is just moving Malaysia backwards. Broadband is about using high data service, P2P downloads, watching movies, heavy downloads and this is limited, it ain't broadband right? I don't think limited radio resources should be an excuse.

On 21st Nov 2006, Maxis reintroduced their mobile TV channels under new brand called Maxis TV with 11 new channels added to the service.
I recieved promotion SMS from Maxis on 25th Nov 2006. After reading the SMS, I log on to Maxis 3G portal to seek for more information. In the portal, it stated that whoever subscribe now can get 30 days free trial.
Besides free trial offer, I also would like to try out how it work. So, I click "Subscribe" button to subscribe to the service. After completed subscrition process, I also go to another link to download and install EasySwitch software application which is supported by my phone (Nokia N70).
But, after started the application (EasySwitch), nothing show on my phone screen after waited for arround 2 minutes. I decided to call Maxis Customer Service and log the problem, the customer service officer told me that their server having problem and should back to service in 1 or 2 hours time.
2 hours later, I connect to the service and it disponted me again. I try a few times after that and never have a chance to connect to the service. So, I call up the customer service again (25th Nov 2006), this time they ask me to wait for arround 7 working days before they rectify the problem.
Do not tell me the location I current in does not support 3G service, I have tried it at Danou Kota and Jalan Raja Chulan which 3G service as stated in your website. Do tell me the phone configuration may incorrect, I have rectify this with your customer service officer.
In this case, I just have one question for Maxis management, why you annouced your service and start sending out promotion message to your customer before your service ready?