Hey great news for us iPhone users in Malaysia. I just had lunch with a new found friend who works in Maxis internally, not going to go into much about his position etc for obvious reasons. He's my dad's friend la, yeah anyway..

He told me specifically that Maxis is in negotiations to bring the iPhone into Malaysia. Details are sketchy but he said that if it's going to happen, it's going to happen early next year.

There is a reason for this: In August, there will be a new ruling that will allow mobile phone users to switch carriers without changing their phone number. For example, you can change your carrier to Digi and contine to use your 012 number.

Obviously, as a result, it's going to be a free-for-all in the carrier wars as there is essentially nothing that's going to stop a subscriber from jumping ship to a rival telco. Whoever has the best rates wins.

The only way to defend against this is, yes, you guessed it, to commit subscribers to long term contracts. And here is juicy bit info #2: Telcos will eventually start offering free or subsidized phones as an incentive to tie consumers down to contracts. This means that the whole mobile phone ecomarket will start to resemble our Western counterparts where free/subsidized phones is the norm..


He said Maxis believes that the iPhone is going to be their trump card in the inevitable carrier wars. The other bonus is the huge profit margin that will be gained from the data plans as let's face it, iPhone users are going to gobble up bandwith like nobody's business.



Anyway, I'm just glad that there is actually some effort put in to bring the iPhone here..


Enjoy the good news guys, and here's to hoping...

Well, he said that they're in negotiations so there are obviously no definite rate plans/pricing of phone yet. Nobody would count their chickens that soon.

What is definite though is that the ruling this August/Sept is going to entirely change the way telcos conduct their businesses. I'm very much looking forward to this. I've been wanting to change to DIGI for the EDGE plan for my 1st Gen iPhone for ages but can't because a lot of my contacts have my current number.

And all this is a huge incentive for the Big 3 to fight to bring the iPhone in. Think about it, the windfall reaped will be tremendous...

Oh and he said Maxis is adopting a wait-and-see strategy to this whole thing after Aug/Sept so that's why it probably won't be in until next year or something like that. I can't remember because at this point I was still ecstatic at the words "Oh and we're going to bring the iPhone in as well.."


Nothing's set in stone yet of course but this is the best indicator of an official iPhone here in a long time so fingers crossed..

In fact, I would say that is THE strategy to adopt if they're wise. You don't have to pay the subsidy for the iPhone and can still have users on the same rate plan.

Win-Win situation, definitely..

Yep, matches the info I got as well: That Maxis will be launching it next week.

Still won't be able to tempt me to upgrade my EDGE iPhone though. I'm attached to it emotionally already after all the highs and lows we've been through together.. Haha..