IMHO, there is no rushing need for LTE other than for ISPs to serve areas unreachable by FTTH with mobile broadband replacing fixed lines.

A well planned 3G DC-HSPA+ network with very good coverage and is in a better position to even take on FD-LTE(with limited spectrum blocks allocations) and even the HSBB fibre networks.

DiGi is in no hurry to rush out their LTE network. They might be waiting to launch a network with significant coverage instead of choosing to slowly expand. Just look at the current pilot areas which Maxis has. They are ALL well served areas with FTTH and it's not a good strategy because the LTE service would just become another overlapped service competing against the HSBB and the upcoming cable tv broadband. How about the underserved areas which have been waiting for years to get fibre? Do Malaysian telcos only please the affluent and elites with all the best things even if they don't necessarily require all of them at once while ignoring the masses?

I wished Telenor(DiGi) would just acquire P1. That way it'll give them a a separate network to position themselves with a pure data/internet service provider instead of mobile voice. You know, the 3G networks are going to be around for quite some time along with LTE. The real benefits with LTE's additional speed has little much to do with voice and the other traditional mobile telco services, with the only exceptional good thing it is good for is for consumer broadband internet services which is confined mostly in the desktops.

Having said that, it is understandable why DiGi has no rush to push out their LTE with their tomorrow network. It's just pure hype. Having fibre-like speeds on your smartphone is nothing more than just hype because the mainstream consumers expects to download chunks of data for ISOs, games, movies and updates which expensive LTE data quotas would not make sense. You might prefer a TD-LTE network that could adjust better to asymmetrical speeds that in return becomes cheaper RM per byte with a better tolerance for higher contentions?

Could it be that DiGi is more interested to find a separate network to run its own internet services as a pure ISP?

Then they should have concentrated on working on their backhaul first don't you think. That's what DiGi is silently concentrating with their Tomorrow's Network advantage. The backhaul plays a very important role to keep sites pumped enough of bandwidth to prevent congestion in real world situations. Creative methods to offload the networks is also an important startegy.

The title of being Asia's 1st to launch commercial LTE has long been taken by others. So launching 1st is not a priority now.
The one who launches the widest coverage, cheapest packages and cater with the surge in network capacity without compormising customers experience is the REAL winner.

I don't understand Malaysian mentality of constraining themselves and always creating competiton only in their areas of choices.
Just look at TM, Maxis, DiGi and UMobile. It's always DU, TTDI, Subang Jaya, Putrajaya and Bangsar. They always get the golden shower first hand and then if demand dies down the whole momentum halts. Who would be interested for expensive high quota LTE packages when you already have HSBB at home? Would a wise person spent unnecessarily on several overlap services which you don't get to use all of it meaningfully? There's a living to make and there's a more to life other than your smartphone and PC at home.

All Malaysian telcos practice a strategy called Oligopoly la.
This is today's modern method of monopolistic practices whereby a few telco company about 3-4 collaboratively price their services/goods similar to one another.

Some thing like this:


Further explanation can be learned in this video:



So you see, no matter you choose telco C, D, M or U, you are not going to see their prices far from each other when it comes to quota, call rates or SMSes. Big brader will regulate them and ask the tadical one to slow down so his family member who owns another rival can still survive.

Virgin Media Business Says Brits think 4G Is Too expensive

If I'm going to stick my SIM card inside my device all the time without any tethering, just give me 4-5mbps truly unlimited HSPA usage with an opportunity to offload traffic at high speed wifi hotspots at public places and in building LTE coverage, I'll be very happy.

You'll not need more than that for your phone because a good 2mbps is more than good enough for live IP video calls, VoIP and texts on IM apps. With the recent LTE-ready backhaul upgrades, that's more than enough to provide stable UNLIMITED 2-5mbps packages for all users.

There's a huge shakeup currently in Maxis management dept and there's rumour saying they'll cut their number of depts.by half which coincide with my earlier theory that Malaysian telcos are mostly overstaffed.

Michael Lai has left P1 Networks and there's goign to be more news expected from both DiGi and Umobile too.

Tough times coming ahead for Malaysian wireless telco sector.They've been playing oligopoly games for too long already fooling Malaysians.

ah Head is the real boss behind all the companies. He applied the same method as gerry mandering in the elections into the telco industry. All profit from every Malaysian telco goes back to same boss.

Bad News For 4G Development In Malaysia Involving Ericsson and TM/Huawei

Telekom Malaysia Bhd is investigating a case of industrial espionage after an employee of one of its multinational partners allegedly gained access to a rival’s facility abroad by masquerading as a member of the telecommunication utility’s entourage.

TM confirmed in a statement to The Malay Mail Online yesterday that it was investigating complaints that the person was part of a group of TM employees visiting the facility at that time.

The Malay Mail Online understands that the person involved worked for a multinational telecommunications equipment company based in a developing economy, and had allegedly gained unauthorised access to the facilities of another TM partner, a Europe-based equipment company—also a rival of the former.

Comments from industry insiders:
http://www.malaysianwireless.com/2013/07/t...rate-espionage/

What reputation will Malaysian telcos get from vendors now after this incident?

We'll be stucked with lousy Huawei equipments for a long time.

Which blue? This one is not the siow one. This one is planning to use LTE to cut cost with its Unifail project by going unwired.

Future development for Malaysia 4G and wireless is bleak lah.

It's getting more and more expensive like we're moving backwards instead of forward.

Last time our telco give 384kbps after quota used up then slowly downgraded to 128kbps then 64kbps now.

uMobile got 7.2mbps UNLIMITED 3 years back in 2010.

Now we got LTE with so little quota allowance. To give you a simple picture, I just reinstalled Linux for my other PC that day so bought a 1GB prepaid to try out its speed.

Just load the landing site and do 1 speedtest already makan 5-6mb.

After updating the OS with software updates and install libreoffice already 500mb GONE!
Surf a few news site with heavy multimedia content poof* 300-300mb gone all within 1 hour.

That costs me RM15 just for convenience that day. I buy halal pack you know.

In comparison, in Thailand when you have True Wi-Fi coverage at your home/apartment, it costs only a mere RM12 for UNLIMITED 10mbps hotspot account.

They sell daring real unlimited 42mbps with NO FUP on their brochures as in TOT3G:

Blue siow one I heard Sabahans and Sarawakians got special deal for them

Why I'm not happy is that they can't just sell the real deal directly in their stores.

Why do we need to buy those exclusive limited editions under blackmarket dealings.
SKMM pack-lah, 1MY pack, Sabah/Sarawak and Kelantan/Terengganu.

I'm sure tourists and those on the move will one something unlimited but not too fast such as a cheap 2mbps UNLIMITED pack instead of having to rely on unreliable net cafes and hotel internet.

Sadly our 64kbps after quota exceed speed is almost unusable with so little quota sold at such high prices.

To give only 384kbps for a paid volume quota based package is just ridiculous such as the one by DiGi with only 150mb per day.

Any sellers here have comments on the Happy Prepaid Broadband Pack sold in Terengganu?

The states that they offer special goody packs demonstrates how so much inconsistencies and favouritism

Will we be seeing special packs for different religions, background and society membership in coming months?

Judging from what they're doing it doesn't seem that it's for profit maximizing purpose. More like SKMM doing the bully to make it hard for the other players to compete on equal turf with the incumbent TM which monopolises the fixed line industry.

Did you all see it? How come fixed lines are allowed to have UNLIMITED bandwidth usage while mobile doesn't? If you tell me due to radio resources constraints and maybe result in more expensive plans, I agree but mobile broadband have limited internet bandwidth? How can that be when both wired and wireless access share the same international gateways and concentrators?Moreover they can be circumvented by improving local infrastructures and smart offloading via free Wi-Fi hotspot accounts given to subscribers

If it was for the money making prioritization and mobile telcos not being bothered about QoS, they've sold UNLIMITED 7.2mbps HSPA packages with no long term contracts and believe it or not, people will be queuing to subscribe them at Maxis/DiGi/uMobile Centres while all will start "potong" their TM fixed lines like no tomorrow.

It is do able with modern NGN IMS infrastructures fed with fibre, UNLIMITED 2-3mbps packages even at peak hours is possible when you think they can deliver 20+mbps for LTE.

Congestion is just an excuse because if you look at countries like Thailand, Taiwan and Japan, they have higher density/number of users than us yet they could still offer very affordable and cheap UNLIMITED access or very high quotas with their offerings.

A base station fed with hundreds of megabits of uplink even taking in 1:1 GPON connections can support gigabits of data. So you can guess how many simultaneous MSes it can support if each is capped to 2-5mbps? Plenty to spare. The constraints are more to the radio resources if you ask me than backhaul bandwidth.

So back to the Rules of SKMM. The situation seems that they are doing it not because of squeezing the public for money.They are doing it because:


1) For protecting the incumbent's fixed line golden share of the market .

2) Restricting Malaysian internet activities and making it hard for the general public to gain access with proper use. They want most people who can't afford the luxury to be restricted with plain text websites, sending/receiving emails and text chats.WTF?

3) Allow blackmarket unrestricted quota packages to be sold via indirect channels which cheats entire company's overall capacity/resources and make it go to waste while honest customers are punished and left to suffer even if they pay premium rates. RM10 for 300mb only anyone?--> DiGi Prepaid Internet cost that expensive!
Less than 15minutes on Youtube - habis!


As you can see, the model is unsustainable but why are they continuing this is anyone's question.
Either the telco staffs are plain moronic stupid or they pretend to be stupid not to notice it. Their company networks are bleeding and leaking with those illegal/unofficial packages while depending on very few honest users to pay through their nose to support their business? RIDICULOUS! Yet they tell the press they're unsure where their bandwidth is wasted?

Malaysian telcos still think that today's websites are still of 56k days content with still images and texts..

Easily a heavy multimedia content site with lots of videos and flash objects will take up tenths or hundreds of megabytes even within an hour. Take most Youtube videos for example most of them over 10mb and you all should be aware that upload data also counts towards your overall volume.

This volume quota pricing has to go someday. A fairer method to sell broadband packages instead of using volume quota is time or speed throttling.If you can't afford to offer speeds like 50mbps with unlimited deals, then lower them to something more realistic like 2-4mbps with monthly unlimited quota yet untaxing to your overall resources.

Why is time based packages better than volume based one? It allows users to adjust their surfing/downloading habits according to their lifestyles and if properly used you'll get more out of what you pay for during off peak hours. Also did you all noticed that even with volume quota restrictions, our mobile telco services still sucks during peak hours, how is that an excuse?

What's the point of giving 50mbps when you are drained of your quota as soon as you watch a few minutes of streaming content?

Telling people the truth, I think DiGi which once used to be many Malaysian favourite choice has became the WORST telco now in the country with the highest number of drop calls and most expensive internet deals.

Many of their talents have left the company and replaced by unproductive ones over the last 3 years resulting in such a letdown.

Their daily internet plans are the most expensive even 3X as expensive as Maxis Hotlink's.

RM3 for 150MB while Hotlink charges RM5 for 600MB.

Their prepaid broadband is so sucky that upon finishing your expensive quota 3X more expensive than Hotlink's, your internet access is cut off immediately - not even slowed down total disconnect!

Whoever in DiGi who planned that prepaid broadband plan to replace the limited edition version should be SACKED immediately for digging the company's grave faster than before!

Also the same curse which once bugged Maxis/Celcom side such as offering too many confusing packages/plans is also starting to infect DiGi. Who knows if the unwanted or lousy staffs previously from Maxis/Celcom had jumped camp and corrupt DiGi?

Worst yet reading the stories from other blogs I've also encountered that DiGi customer service have now reached the same levels as once Hotlink.There was one I read complaining that their customer service officer could tell their customer that if he could not make emergency calls, they should call their customer careline to report immediately.

What a joke! If you are in an emergency situation at knife point you still want to call DiFi cust careline?
Die lar like dat!

http://www.malaysianwireless.com/2013/07/d...celcom-letters/

I don't blame Telenor - DiGi's parent company for this wait and observe policy. Maybe they're just waiting to sell the company off at the right time when they get the price tag done RIGHT.

DiGi says they're planning to spend MYR 650million over the next few years to upgrade their Tomorrow's Network.

Did you all know how much Telenor is spending for their sister company DTAC's Tomorrow HSPA/LTE network in Thailand?
USD1.3billion
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/56691.php
They also have better access in Thailand over the 850MHz/1800MHz spectrums.

Their ads said that startup packs as low as RM15 suggest strongly that it's going to be volume based similar to the other players.

With LTE kind of speeds it's pointless to offer volume based packages anymore with absurd quota such as 100mb or so.

We no LONGER live in the dial up days where webpages consists mainly of texts and little images.

So the correct way of offering LTE with speeds today is to start offering back TIME BASED speed boost packages with minimum QoS to consumers.

I'm sure if you ask many people who is lucky enough to experience LTE speeds when you ask them which do you prefer 0.5GB quota or 1 hour speed boost.

Many will opt for the 1 hour of speed boost with QoS instead of the volume restrictions.

With the growing capacity of modern 42mbsp HSPA and LTE, a time based model makes more sense than volume quota with UNLIMITED fallback to 3.6mbps(general 1-2mbps HSPA) to alleviate congestion.

You can always plan your downloads and crucial moments when you need the extra bandwidth at certain times.

This is something similarly offered by Time Fibre Broadband with their monthly 50 hours.

Maybe LTE providers can offer something similar such as:

UNLIMITED Packages with 3mbps HSPA with monthly on demand LTE access speed boosts of 20-50 hours?

I can only see the best selling point for LTE is for the extra speed needed to move huge files at times and stream important multimedia contents.

Other than that a 2mbps UNLIMITED connection is more than enough to browse web sites, make video/HD voice calls and emails on your phone or PC.

Sadly however the LTE business model clashes with Malaysian telcos who are still die hard on maintaining their lucrative circuit based voice calls and SMSes. They know very well that an UNLIMITED 1-2mbps connection in a smartphone with time based on demand LTE will immediately eliminate their money cow.

For me, I'm definitely going to push for time based LTE packages in this country in time to come instead of sticking with old outdated volume quotas.

With LTE unrestricted speeds, an hour of downloading could probably handle more data than a full month's stingy quota that Malaysian telcos today provide. Those kind of monthly quota such as 2GB - 10GB plans are rubbish for LTE is capable of. Why buy a sportscar when you can are going to drive it mostly in town?

P1 Networks will soon be followed by DiGi. They used to be the most exciting telcos back in those days but some party wasn't happy with their aggressive marketing sales strategies.

It's hard to do business when some government commission who is supposedly needed to be neutral in its stance forces the smaller players to share bandwidth with a incumbent monopoly in the same business instead.

As a result you can see DiGi's prepaid voice calls are now the most expensive in the industry as well as it's internet.
Newer players will continue to replace the old but business doesn't get anymore further because the public could feel that there's a cartel like structure controllinb behind the whole telecoms sector.

With fibre like speeds, its almost useless and frustrating for users to still be counted against small volume quota. Time based packages are more meaningful to consumers.

But then again, you never know how greedy our telcos can get, they can still device to offer consumers ridiculous small time durations and it's back to square one.

With time based model, users have the discretion to choose whether they want to go online during peak hours/off peak. If they choose to log in during peak hours and settle for less, then it's their choice but sometimes we might need the speed boost desperately to do urgent downloads or watch important live feeds in high definition.
By timing our usage properly subscribers have more freedom to plan their downloads wisely whenever they need them.

Volume quota is less flexible because we can't control totally what our PCs sent out or receive in addition to what we intend to download with the fixed amount thus there is always overheads and leakages which is less fair to the users.
We have the automatic AV updates, software updates and OS updates coming in that drains volume with users having little control over them.

DiGi's results might look good for short term but it lacks a promising future with all the expensive plans they are selling right now. Many of their users including long time faithful ones are already switching to other players due to their disappointment. If they're continuing it, it's just a matter of waiting for the right offer that comes along for a takeover.

If this Altel also comes out with stingy volume quota, all hope is lost for LTE industry in Malaysia.

It's cheating to sell volume quota packages and throttle users speed to dialup like speeds.

DiGi's doing that. Pay RM3 for a daily 150mb quota plan yet they still throttle you to 384kbps speed.

BS and did you know that the slower your line is, you actually consume more volume in the end because Malaysian telcos count towards both upload + download traffic?

Why that's because if you prolong your download for a file of the same size say 100mb using a 50mbps LTE vs a 384kbps HSDPA line, the latter will end up using up more quota than the earlier because it has to keep sending "keep alive" + feedback information via uploads to the server over a longer period of time in addition to the download file size you download?

In the end by slowing down lines while charging so expensive for so little volume quota, they are cheating consumers even more.

Cost per GB is cheaper than those days I completely agree.

On contrary to that, it seems our present day mobile internet charges has gotten even more expensive compared to years back.

Years back mobile backhauls and connectivity was limited and today we already have most our our base stations wired up with redundant fibre links which feed them with gigabits of data.

Even so the irony was that years back we had truly UNLIMITED access at full 7.2mbps for RM99 and those with quota are slowed down to even faster speeds than today - 384kbps after finishing what they subscribed.

Today Malaysian general quota exceed speed across all telcos is 64kbps/128kbps! Why are we moving backwards? Is bandwidth getting more expensive? I don't think so.

Why are we not getting something like 512kbsp-1mbps after we exceeded our quotas since LTE networks today do speeds of over 30mbps on most plans while base stations already are accommodating hundreds or gigabits of data on their backhaul links?

Our mobile telcos are still selling 384kbps mobile internet plans, and those who have used it would know how excruciating it is. Even Youtube videos on 144p wouldn't stream smoothly and you need to pay RM3 just for 150mb?
That's horrendous!

At the end, it's all about the money and revenues. Our telcos still think they can have it all their way even though they continue to make Malaysian subscribers as theit milk cows.

Just came back from Maxis press conf , earnings up 13.8% to 528million YoY.

Still believe the lies that subscribers are hogging their lines with a small percentage hogging over 80% of their capacity? If that is so how come every year their profits keep going up and up?

International capacity limited? How come fixed lines get away with UNLIMITED bandwidth while wireless who shares the same international submarine connectivity with them doesn't?