While Malaysia strives to move into the 5G era, the current 4G mobile network connectivity is still found wanting in many areas in the country, including the Klang Valley.
Mobile users in areas such as Taman TAR in Ampang, Jalan Damai Jasa in Alam Damai, Cheras Hartamas and certain areas in Subang, Selangor, face connectivity issues.
Wong Sew Kin, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, said there are areas within the Klang Valley that face a drop in network signals.
“Even places near my house in Bukit Beruntung, Rawang, have no signal at all let alone the internet,” he said, adding that more needs to be done for telecommunications infrastructure in Malaysia if it is to be on par with nations such as Singapore and China.
“We are venturing into 5G now but there are still problems with connectivity. We should address this to solidify our mobile network infrastructure so that we are able to make quick and steady advancement without having to worry about minor issues. It is important that we iron out the kinks.”
He added the lack of network signals can be attributed to the lack of base stations, or simply known as telco towers, in certain areas.
“As far as I know, the building of base stations has nothing to do with the government as it’s usually up to the telcos and they prioritise providing network connectivity in highly populated and commercial areas.
“However, the government can play its part by providing incentives for telcos to set up more base stations to ensure that we are fully connected,” he said.
Anusha Ravi, a resident of Alam Damai in Kuala Lumpur, told theSun she often has to direct her e-hailing drivers through the phone to her residence as the drivers are unable to use navigation apps due to the poor network signal.
A resident of Taman Billion in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, said he has faced poor network coverage for years despite being close to commercial areas.
“I have complained about this many times but nothing has been done,” he said, adding that he has to walk some distance away from his house just to make a call.
However, another expert who declined to be named, specialising in base station construction and installation, said the government is already doing all it can to ensure connectivity.
“The government, through the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s Universal Service Provision fund, provides contractors and telcos opportunities to develop network infrastructure and connectivity in under-served areas, especially rural places.
“To my knowledge, sometimes we face issues such as a drop in network signals due to lack of base stations within a certain range. Sometimes there is no land to build base stations in between.”
Telcos sometimes face problems when planning to build base stations due to protests by residents in the area.
For instance, residents in Taman Sri Puteri, Bayan Lepas in Penang, successfully lobbied for the removal of telco towers in their area recently.
Among their reasons was that the towers were too close to their homes and thus were a health hazard.
Tutela, an independent crowdsourced data company, noted in its “State of mobile Networks 2019: Southeast Asia” report last year that Thailand beat Malaysia in a test where a mobile connection was good enough for basic internet usage.
The Philippines and Indonesia came out third and fourth.
“All four countries in the report are relatively close when it comes to basic quality. Thailand takes first place, with users able to make a voice over internet protocol call – a technology that allows you to make voice calls using a broadband internet connection or check emails at least 92.5% of the time when connected to one of the country’s networks.”
The battle over 5G network suppliers is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to check China’s rise as a global technology powerhouse.PHOTO: REUTERS
How China’s tech sector is challenging the world – Part 1
Huawei CEO: “US companies will suffer the most”
The Point: Does China need to teach the West lesson in 5G?
LIKE it or not, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) is upon us.
Sure, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has shown political resolve in pointing Malaysians towards a new course in reaching higher levels of industrialisation. Lest we forget, IR4.0 simply embodies digitalisation. It’s powerful – where speed, sophistication and the profound impact of digital technologies are integrated into orthodox industries on a massive scale.
Frankly, I worry that – until now, as the process of digitalisation in Malaysia lags behind what’s happening around us – the lack of preparedness and of real resolve to act with clear plans and programmes will (unlike China) leave us further and further behind as domestic politics continue to overwhelm. Previous technological shifts followed the onset of the steam engine in the first industrial revolution; then came electricity, the internal combustion engine, the telephone and the light bulb which is the second; followed by the third which moved from analogue to digital (web 2.0) as reflected by the personal computer, networking, the Internet and data/IT.
Digitalisation
In the digital age, economic activity results from billions of online connections. They involve not just people and organisations, but also data, devices, systems and processes. Its backbone is hyper-connectivity. It’s where the effects of technologies and platforms (such as Internet, artificial intelligence (AI) robotics, 5G, computational biology, the Internet-of-Things or IoT, data analytics and computational analysis) give rise to whole new industries, creating significant massive shifts in productivity and jobs.
Outside Malaysia, the digital economy is taking shape and undermining conventional notions about how businesses and organisations are structured; how they interact; and how consumers get their information, goods and services. For example, mall car parking in China is done digitally – after scanning the car’s number plate, the car is directed to an empty lot; and when it leaves, the system automatically deducts the fee from the e-wallet. Simply, components in the digital economy are transformed or empowered by digitalisation: the fundamental process where data is generated, collected, analysed and eventually serves as the single most valuable asset. And so, data becomes the most valuable currency.
Today, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Japan lead the world in digitalisation – way ahead of the United States. China’s digital economy accounts for about one-third of its GDP: arising from two components (i) the orthodox ICT industry; and (ii) the digital empowerment of conventional industries (like agriculture, pharmaceutical, transportation, services, etc). This part contributes 75% of what’s digital.
Today, digital technologies have created a new virtual and autonomous economy (VAE) beyond mere production. Here, businesses & their processes make use of intelligent functions to boost economic activities – slowly but surely, they begin to render human activities increasingly obsolete.
The VAE is all about distribution – who gets what from production. This changes everything: from politics to free market beliefs to social structures. It all started in the ‘70s and ‘80s when ICs (tiny “integrated circuit” microchips) brought real computational assistance to the economy – arrival of the personal computer.
Then, the 1900s and 2000s brought in the connection of digital processes through the Internet; web services emerged, and the cloud enlarged computing resources. Everything started to talk to each other. Globalisation arrived. Since then (the 2010s), the onset of wireless networks through the use of a range of sensors brought into focus, data – using tons of data to enable machines to “see” via intelligent algorithms.
So, came computer vision (ability of machines to recognise), natural-language processing (ability of computers to “talk”), digital language translation, face and voice recognition, inductive inference and digital assistance. The use of masses of data to form “associations” began to give “life” to computers (beginning to act like humans), making them “intelligent.”
The new intelligent building blocks – using information, enable digitalisation to re-architect the way businesses do things. As a result, entirely new industries (never even thought of) will spring up.
Lost jobs
In 1930, Lord John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, the use of robots will lead to “technological unemployment”. This is now a reality – 10 years ahead! Jobs get increasingly scarce.
The orthodox economy will have by now produced enough for all. In the new VAE, physical production matters less; access to what’s being produced becomes key – distribution, i.e. who gets what! The new distributive era brings new economic and social realities: (i) belief in free markets (which prize efficiency over distribution) will be under pressure, since losers are rarely fully compensated in practice; (ii) the way to measure growth will also change (since GDP and productivity are now measured in terms of physical production) so that virtual advances in value-added will be properly accounted; (iii) workers feel disenfranchised as digitalisation replaces many of them – creating a quiet anger about immigration, inequality and elitists.
5G
US dominated 4G mainly because regulators got out of the way of private risk-takers. This led to the coming of mobile wireless Internet. Europe and Asia are still smarting over the United States having beaten them to the 4G finish line. By 2016,4G added almost US$100bil annually to American economic output and created numerous wireless-related jobs. It also powered the rise of the “app economy” because tools like Uber, Airbnb, Netflix and Waze require superfast mobile speeds to work.
Most apps weren’t even envisioned a decade ago; now nearly three-quarters of the companies in the global app economy are American. Other countries know they will reap massive economic returns if they knock the US off its perch as the 5G economy unfolds. Indeed, Europe and Asia are poised to surge past the US when it comes to mobile Internet innovation.
The next generation mobile broadband or 5G will allow entrepreneurs to create new technologies and products that we don’t even yet know we need. Ten years ago, most consumers didn’t have a smart phone; now most can’t live without them.
All of this happened thanks to 4G. With 5G, mobile speeds could be 100 times faster. This could enable driverless cars to avoid accidents, transform medicine through implanted medical devices, and produce smarter cities and energy grids through the emerging IoT.
Countries that build their 5G networks first will be in a better position to experiment with and deploy tomorrow’s technologies. Their first-to-market advantage could displace Silicon Valley and other US tech cradles. Already the United States is very much behind compared with Europe, South Korea, Japan and China. Since 2015, China has built about 350,000 cell sites, against fewer than 30,000 in the United States. That’s a huge competitive disparity because 5G requires far more cell sites grouped closer together than 4G.
The robot is part of a broader trend in China, where techcos are teaming up with a variety of industries – agriculture, auto-mobile, healthcare – to explore the possibilities of combining 5G and AI to revolutionise traditional sectors.
From conducting the world’s first 5G-enabled surgery on a human and transmitting 8K ultra-high-definition TV content through 5G networks, to piloting self-driving buses and cars, China is pioneering cutting-edge technologies for commercial use. The high-tech push is expected to accelerate now that China just kicked off the 5G era at speeds at least 10 times faster than 4G. So it is possible to gather high-quality data quickly, which is necessary to ensure AI is effective. AI applications have existed before the commercial use of 5G. But it is the superfast speed, gigantic computing capacity and massive device connectivity of 5G that will spawn the use of AI in most sectors and on a far larger scale. 5G’s responsive speed can empower mission-critical applications that are impossible with 4G networks.
When a needle pinches your finger, it takes one-hundredth of a second to feel the pain. And theoretical latency of 5G is one-tenth of that. Only with such speed can remote surgeries and autonomous driving see wider applications. In March 2019, a patient with Parkinson’s disease underwent China’s (and possibly the world’s) first 5G-based remote surgery. Digital technologies such as AI, next-generation network security, robotics, blockchain, IoT, 3D printing and virtual reality all depend on data. 5G addresses this need for data collection with its quick, smooth transmission.
The most important use of AI is to allow machines to automatically make decisions. The best application is self-driving vehicles where 5G will allow decisions to be made more reliably. When a car runs into emergencies (like a pedestrian suddenly jaywalking), a delay in seconds of data transmission among sensors equipped within the car will likely cause a potentially grievous, even fatal, accident. 5G can prevent such things from happening.
6G
While 5G is set to have a revolutionary influence on society and industries, 6G will bring more dramatic changes with super high speeds and ultralow latency. Theoretically, downloads over 6G can reach the astonishing speed of 1 Tbit per second, one thousand times faster than 5G’s capability of 1Gbit. In the 6G era, in less than a second, a new movie can be transmitted from the Internet to computers or smartphones. But 6G will go way beyond entertainment. For many researchers, 6G is capable of addressing some of the shortfalls of 5G and enabling streamlined connections with super performance in speeds and latency – for instance, the IoT and augmented reality.
Beijing started preliminary work on 6G research at the end of 2017. China’s 6G concept research and development work will start in 2020, with an expected commercial release in 2030. In Europe, 6G moves will mainly come from Finland. As I see it, Europe and China will need to join hands to work on 6G: because (a) cooperation is of strategic importance for both. 6G will greatly improve applications under 5G. With larger bandwidth, much lower latency and wider connections, it can revolutionise the structure of wired and wireless networks.
New 6G technical solutions can include satellite communication technology. This means a large number of places that are not covered by communication signals (for instance, deep oceans where base stations cannot be built) will have the possibility of transmitting and receiving signals in the future; (b) such cooperation will help Europe cope with the risks of lagging behind; and (c) it would be a natural extension of their proven 5G cooperation.
What then are we to do
The 5G technology promises to be the backbone of tomorrow’s Internet, transforming virtually every industry, including weaponry and manufacturing, by offering seamless wireless connections up to 100 times faster than current 4G networks. Its speed and capacity enable innovations, such as driverless cars, robot-run factories and Internet-connected pacemakers. It is said often enough that we tend to overstate the impact of technology in the short run and understate it in the long run.
One of the widely misquoted statistics concerns an imminent job apocalypse: automation will slash 47% of US jobs by mid-2030. In truth, the real finding of the two Oxford dons simply concluded that occupations accounting for 47% of current American jobs (including those in office administration, sales and various service industries) fall into the “high risk” category.
No attempt was made to estimate how many jobs will actually be lost. Much depends on cost, regulatory concerns, political pressure and social resistance. Historically, new technologies have always ended up creating more jobs than they destroyed. In the long run, all should work out fine. The short term is likely to be bumpy.
Simply because new technologies take time to raise productivity and produce wage gains. But, one thing is certain, automation is likely to boost inequality in the short run. So, policymakers need to really manage the transition: making greater use of insurance to compensate workers who have to move to jobs with lower salary; reforming education systems and support retraining and lifelong learning; extending income tax credit to improve incentives to work and reduce inequality; removing regulations that hinder job-switching; providing “mobility vouchers” to subsidise relocation as the distribution of jobs changes; and changing zoning rules to allow more people to live in the cities where jobs are being created. Sure, all these make sense. But will policymakers pay attention? To be frank, governments are incredibly unprepared for what’s to come.
The bottom line? Power brings with it great responsibility. Those in the technology and AI space have a moral imperative to ensure the ethics of data and technology – especially to help policymakers navigate complex ethical issues involved in using AI and robotics.
Most data relate to people – hence, the need to understand human behaviour. Technologies provoke a whole raft of new ethical issues involving transparency and accountability of business processes and decision making. Then, there are issues of privacy and rights connected with personal data. Not to forget that machine-learning algorithms often introduce bias.
Resolving them requires an approach grounded in ethics and an understanding of the causes of bias – traditionally the province of philosophy and sociology. In the end, the challenge lies in formulating transparent rules and ethical standards that can be agreed by the large scientific and technology community. That’s always tough!
BY Tan Sri Lin See-Yan who is Research Professor at Sunway University. His new book: Trying Troubled Times Amid Trauma &Tumult, 2017–2019 (Pearson). Feedback is most welcome. The views expressed are the writer’s own. Related
This photo of Shanghai Bund is taken by Chinese Satellite with 24.9 billion pixels of quantum technology. It’s worth seeing! You can zoom in, zoom out when you look at it. You can clearly see every gesture, even face of pedestrians on the road. You can see the license plate. Photos can also be moved up and down, left and right. It is said that this is the latest development of China’s military science and technology achievements, hidden, indeed suffered harm!!! It can also be rotated. Press’+’to zoom in and’-‘ to zoom out. Left and right rotation. It’s too clear!
Quantum Technology will be used in 5G phone very soon. Europe and US are scared to death now because this technology is monopoly in nature
Why did Canada arrest the CFO of Chinese tech giant Huawei? – Samsung surrendered its Chip IP right to US companies in order to survive
By Janus Dongye, Researcher at University of Cambridge
The detailed reason for this arrest has been revealed. Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng is suspected of conspiracy to defraud multiple financial US institutions. The US Judiciary found that there was a company called Skycom that traded with Iran during 2011–2014 and Huawei was suspected to control the company Skycom at that time.
So the accusation is about the old Iran sanctions 7 years ago. And you might wonder why someone brought this up at this particular time.
There is something else that you need to know to understand this incident.
Global 5G Battle
5G is the fifth generation of cellular mobile communications. It succeeds the 4G (LTE/WiMax), 3G (UMTS) and 2G (GSM) systems. 5G is the new critical node for the future global supply chain. This is the ultimate technology that determines the communication/mobile networks in the next 10 years. Therefore this is a big cake that everyone wants to get a slice from it.
The whole 5G framework can be divided into two key technology: the modem chipset and router infrastructure. On one hand, the modem chipset is installed in your phones and other sensors that need to be connected to the Internet.
The current 5G modem chipset patent (IP) is held by:
Huawei (China), Qualcomm (US), Samsung (Korea), MediaTek (Taiwan), Intel (US), Apple (US) (rumoured). On the other hand, the router infrastructure is placed in base stations all over the buildings and towers. It directly talks to the 5G modem in your mobile phones and translates your 5G requests to the Internet.
The current 5G router patent (IP) is held by:
Huawei (China), Nokia (Finland), Ericsson (Sweden), ZTE (China) Surprise Hah?, Cisco (US), Samsung (Korea).
There are two hidden traps from this 5G technology that other people might not tell you:
The router and the modem chipset must be compatible, and therefore a standard must be settled in order for them to talk.
The modem chipset is deeply coupled into the system on a single chip with CPU and GPUs. The system is normally shipped as a package.
If you hold the 5G modem IP in a SOC (System-on-chip), you can also bind your CPU and GPU IP in a package. That means whoever controls the 5G IP would also control the whole market of the CPU and GPU intellectual property. If you hold the 5G router standard, you can also control the modem standard and then control the whole system standard.
For example, if the US were to allow Huawei to sell its 5G router devices to Verizon or AT&T, then Huawei could make all of its base stations to only support its own modem standard. Then you could end up with the whole system package delivered by Huawei as well. Then the US might have to buy more devices made by Huawei in order to use 5G.
That’s how Qualcomm rose from a small company to the top simply based on its 3G patents. And you can see that Huawei and Samsung is the dominant player here that they both control the modem and router patents.
However, owing to the pressure of the US government, Samsung surrendered its chip IP right to US companies. This is the fundamental difference between Samsung and Huawei. Because the South Korean market is so small and therefore Samsung has to surrender to the US in order to survive.
Samsung Galaxy S10 Comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC and 5G Service – Tech News Watch
You might wonder why Samsung does not use its Exynos processors in US but it has to use Qualcomm one? That is the pressure from the US government.
Meanwhile, Huawei gets the full cultivation in the Chinese market and does not fear the US government. It never intends to go to the US market as well. What it focuses on is the adoption in China and the rest of third-world countries. If you read the following recent news, you can get a feeling that China is really leading the global 5G battle in all three fields: technology, adoption and market.
Chongqing launches first 5G trial network
‘World’s first’ 5G call completed by Vodafone and Huawei
China Mobile and China Unicom to start 5G trials | TelecomLead
Briefing: China’s mobile operators granted nationwide 5G licenses · TechNode
The Chinese government said it would perform nationwide 5G adoption using Huawei technology around March 2019. Please note that this is a market of 1.4 billion people that is US population and Europe population combined. And the Chinese government is pushing this really hard, unlike the US stuck in legislation as you can imagine.
Meanwhile, the first adoption of 5G belongs to South Korea, which is four months ahead of China:
South Korean carriers set surprise commercial 5G launch for December 1 And compared to the US government, both Chinese and Korean government are very efficient in promoting 5G infrastructures. In this manner, US companies are really lagging behind. This could firstly cause wide-spread fears among the US companies. It is very likely that those companies would lobby the US Congress to ban Huawei at first. The arrest happens just before the Huawei 5G technology is going to be adopted commercially in China.
It is very likely that some people wanted to disrupt the growth of Huawei. Everyone talks about the Huawei arrest. But no one is talking about who initiated the investigation against Huawei and who filed the case in the US juridical system in the first place?
Another interesting side note during the incident:
Cisco temporarily bans employees from China
I suspect CISCO could be the one who actually filed the case to ban Huawei.
Here’s what it is: a strong improvement to the iPhone 4S that offers up a larger screen, 4G LTE speeds, and a terrific camera. The iPhone 5 carries on the goodness that Apple excels at, like iTunes entertainment and cloud storage.
But however good the iPhone 5 is, it lacks the knockout, gasp-inducing feature that Apple followers have come to expect: perhaps double the battery life of any other phone on the market, or an innovative camera feature that lets you drag and drop subjects around the screen, or other far-out concepts come to life.
Instead, we see a lot of catching up: LTE support, panorama mode, and photo capture while a video records, maps with turn-by-turn navigation, and a slightly larger screen with the same pixel density as on the iPhone 4 two generations ago. And it still lacks certain other perks, like NFC, which is useful for mobile payments, and for sharing content from phone to phone.
For the first time in a long time, Apple has given its rivals room to bask in their own innovations.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 is the anti-iPhone.
(Credit: Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)
The Nokia’s Lumia 920 offers wireless charging, for example, a capability it’ll pilot in coffee shops and airline lounges. Its camera is literally surrounded by springs, and the screen uses a very smart display filter that could match or even surpass the iPhone 5’s display (we have to wait to see them side by side.
Meanwhile, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 offers up an enormous 5.5-inch screen and a truckload of tricks with its S Pen stylus, and a new camera feature that will compile the best of a handful of group photos, increasing the chances that everyone’s smiling. Its phone/tablet hybrid is the antithesis of the smaller iPhone screen.
On the battery front, Motorola‘s new Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD can’t be beat; it features a powerful 3,300mAh battery that promises 21 hours of talk time to Apple’s 8 hours of talk time over 3G on the iPhone 5.
Make no mistake that the iPhone 5 will sell like wildfire and bring delight to Apple fans everywhere — in fact, I even think it makes for a great universal choice.
Yet its lack of a “gotcha” feature gives shoppers considering other powerful alternatives — like the intriguing Lumia 920, the larger-than-life Samsung Galaxy Note 2, or even the won’t-quit Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD — fewer reasons to stick with Apple.
KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 19, 2010): YTL Communications Sdn Bhd today launched the world’s first fully converged 4G mobile Internet service with voice offering the industry’s lowest rates at nine sen a minute, per SMS or per 3MB of data through its pay-as-you-go plan.
The Yes service incorporates fully converged data and voice services, speeds of up to five times faster than 3G, new devices and a unified communication tool. The Yes service was officially launched by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (pix above).
YTL Communications executive chairman Tan Sri Dr Francis Yeoh said: “Every Yes account comes with high-speed Internet access and a mobile phone number, making the convergence of data and voice seamless. Our subscribers will have not only high-speed mobile data access but will also enjoy voice, online chat and SMS services that can be accessed from anywhere in the world, through the Internet.”
The Yes plan, which offers nine sen per minute/SMS/3MB is up to three times lower than current prepaid mobile Internet and voice packages, and combines voice, mobile Internet and mobile broadband into an integrated plan so that consumers do not have to pay multiple bills.
YTL Communications chief executive officer Wing K Lee said there is no throttling of data services and there is no wastage as customers are charged only for what they use.
He said there is no contract or lock-in period and there is no expiry for the credits.
Yes also offers up to 30% rebate to power users who consume a high amount of data that reduces the rates to as low as two sen per MB or RM20 per GB.
Yes is also a SIM-less service that comes with a user ID and telephone number that works across all devices, turning any device connected to the Internet into a phone.
During the launch today, YTL Communications and Samsung introduced the first all-4G mobile phone, the Yes Buzz. Other Yes 4G devices include Yes Huddle (4G mobile router), Yes Go (4G USB dongle) and Yes Zoom (4G WiFi router).
At the launch, the Yes 4G covers 65% of the population in Peninsular Malaysia and the company aims to increase the coverage to at least 80% by end- 2011.
Yeoh said that it currently has the licence for only Peninsular Malaysia but will extend the service to Sabah and Sarawak at the right time.
He said Malaysians travelling abroad can also keep in touch with friends and family at home through Yes at local rates without worrying about roaming charges.
He added that it would be giving 300MB of data or 100 minutes of voice calls a month free to every student registered under its Education Partner programme. “I am also pleased to announce that we will be extending the Education Partner programme to all government-sponsored scholars abroad.”
Speaking at the launch, Muhyiddin said the service would help the government improve the household broadband penetration which is currently at 54.5%.
“I am confident that we can reach even more households and help establish high quality and affordable broadband network that will reach 95% of the population by 2020,” he said.
He added that it is critical for the nation to balance market-friendly environment to drive private investments with maintaining its inclusive policy aims, particularly on affordability of access and quality of service in rural area.
Its Yes service will cover 80% of population by end-2011 from 65% now.
KUALA LUMPUR: YTL Communications Sdn Bhd (YTL Comms) will roll out its 4G mobile Internet-with-voice service, Yes, to cover 80% of the population by end-2011.
YTL Comms, a unit of YTL Power International Bhd, currently has a coverage of 65%. To date, it has invested some RM2.5bil in the Yes 4G infrastructure.
He said its pay-as-you-go rate of nine sen for 3MB (megabit) data, one-minute call or one short-messaging service was the cheapest in town.
Lee said Yes also offered up to 30% rebate to power users who consume high amounts of data.
The saving starts at 2.5GB (gigabit). The more you use, the less you pay, he said, adding that for usage of 4GB and above, subscribers would get a 30% rebate for every GB used.
Yes subscribers will receive a rebate of RM9 for data usage of 2.5GB while usage of 3GB will get RM23 rebate.
The rebates will reduce Yes’ rates to as low as two sen per MB or RM20 per GB while giving users the power to self-manage by setting temporary data caps.
YTL Comms and Samsung have also introduced the world’s first all-4G mobile phone, Yes Buzz, which will be available next month.
The 4G network will be SIM-less with the 018 prefix.
YTL Comms chairman Tan Sri Francis Yeoh declined to give a specific target of pre-registered subscribers but said the numbers were healthy.
He said the response to the pre-registration had exceeded the group’s expectations by three times.
Yeoh said the group was keen to cooperate with telecommunications service providers in China and other Asian countries to offer 4G services.
Prior to the launch, Yes 4G faced interconnectivity issues with other networks as it was unable to interconnect with the operators. However, the group managed to sign interconnectivity agreements with them yesterday.
We’re now finally interconnected with everybody. We have received full cooperation (from other telcos), Seok Hong said, adding that other operators had welcomed them onboard.
At the launch, Muhyiddin spent five minutes on a video call with Malaysian students in London.
Also present were YTL Corp executive chairman Tan Sri Yeoh Tiong Lay; Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Utama Dr Rais Yatim; Tun Lim Kheng Yaik; and Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek.
Can YTL keep promise to be cheapest mobile phone service and survive?
AS expected, the mobile Internet service from YTL Communications Sdn Bhd, Yes, was launched last Friday with much fanfare. Some consumers are excited and rightly so.
YTL is promising the cheapest communication rates in the country with a simple integrated plan that combines voice, SMS and mobile data. There is also talk that YTL could offer Internet protocol TV soon.
YTL’s Yes launch, however, is reminiscent of a couple of other launches of telecommunications-related services in the past by newcomers attempting to break into the scene.
Those following the telco or broadband scene will remember that in the last 10 years or so, there have been many players who have come into the wireless broadband scene.
Alas, despite their ambitious and sometimes colourful ad campaigns, many have not been able to sustain their businesses.
Here are some examples:
EB Capital Bhd launched its wireless broadband service in 2001, got listed in 2005 and went into major financial difficulties by 2008, when it was de-listed.At one point, had more than 1,500 corporate and retail customers for its wireless broadband service and had even done trials on WiMAX.
AtlasOne Sdn Bhd, started by a bunch of former Celcom employees around 2000. It was hailed as the new broadband player in town when it announced that it had garnered a significant amount of funding.At one point, it was said to have raised RM370mil partly from the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah and partly from Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Bhd. But AtlasOne fizzled out and little has been reported about whether its funders had got their money back.
Time dotCom Bhd (TdC) in 2004 launched its wireless broadband service called Webbit in certain areas of Petaling Jaya. It is believed that TdC had not even managed to move beyond its pilot phase for various reasons, the bulk of them being technical in nature.
MiTV Corp Sdn Bhd, launched in 2005 as the country’s second pay-TV operator, had expected to sign up 100,000 subscribers for the first year.It failed to gain a foothold in the pay-TV market and suspended its new subscription activities in late 2006, only to morph its business model into a cellphone service provider in the country.It changed its name to U Mobile Sdn Bhd, and operates the 018 prefix service and is now running trials on a wireless broadband service. Singapore’s STT Communications Ltd and Multi-Purpose Holdings Bhd have bought stakes in U Mobile.
Green Packet Bhd, the most significant licensed WiMAX player in Malaysia (considering its widest coverage), has so far reported losses over the last few years due to its high capital expenditure in rolling out its network.It promises profitability, at least from an Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) calculation, by next year.
No doubt, many players are driven to the industry by the attractive Ebitda margins achieved by the entrenched players, such DiGi.Com, Celcom and Maxis. But those starting afresh face major challenges and this is why many have failed.
First, you are up against some serious competition the incumbents are not about to give up a customer easily and these players have to some extent, sunken costs that put them in a better position to fight on price.
Then there are the huge costs involved in rolling services, on multiple fronts actually. Firstly, there is the network itself, which includes not only the equipment costs but also having pay real estate owners a rental for using their area to put up base stations and other equipment.Then you have to continuously ensure your service is up and running and of a certain quality.
It can cost a lot of money to deploy a sufficient number of technically competent staff.Then there are the other fixed costs such as paying for billing systems, the call centres to handle customer queries and complaints and in some instances, having to pay what is called a device subsidy.This is where players absorb some of the cost of devices sold that use their network so as to entice customers.One of the world’s leading WiMAX players, US-based Clearwire, is still reporting losses.
Still, perhaps a time will come when WiMAX players will achieve healthy Ebitda margins. And perhaps then they will enjoy the kind of investor interest that DiGi.Com and Maxis have today, due to their massive cash flows. Time will tell.
Deputy news editor Risen Jayaseelan says that despite the lack of visibility of profits of WiMAX players, the entry of new service providers can only mean good news to consumers, who should enjoy better rates for their telecommuncation needs.
YTL Communications launches “most affordable” 4G service
Coming up Friday 4G service, five times faster than current 3G
YTL sees good demand for WiMAX service
YTL’s hybrid TV to host RTM, Media Prima channels
YTL Corp, with cash reserves of RM10.8bil, is largest listed non-GLC
New mobile phone service coming up in M’sia
Need for regulatory framework to lure investors
It will have the lowest rate in the industry with no monthly commitment and conditions, he said, in an interview with StarBiz, adding that the product line-up for the launch would include a 4G smartphone developed with Samsung (called Yes Buzz), USB dongle, MiFi device and a desktop WiFi router.
Yes, the next generation high-speed data service, is expected to have a coverage of up to 65% of the peninsula from day one while the states or areas which are not yet included will be covered not too long from now, according to Yeoh. The company has spent some RM2.5bil for the Yes 4G infrastructure.
“It will be five times faster than the current 3G network but the price will be compatible … very affordable and the best price,” says YTL Communications Sdn Bhd executive chairman Tan Sri Francis Yeoh during the interview with StarBiz.
Tomorrow’s launch has generated much excitement. Yeoh stressed that YTL Comms, with a staff strength of 2,000 built up over the past year, will be the first in the world to offer a converged 4G network voice, mobile Internet and mobile broadband.
Unlike current offerings where mobile data and voice are separated, we will bring everything into one plan with no additional charge. There will also be mobile TV at the end of next year, he said.
Yes will put Malaysia on par with the South Koreans, Singaporeans and Japanese on the technology front, Yeoh said, adding that the multiplier effect of such a technology was that it raised efficiency and productivity. With every 10% increase in broadband penetration, this increases the GDP by 1.3%, he said.
The response has been more than encouraging so far. Even prior to the launch, YTL Comms has received tens of thousands of pre-registrations three times above expectation which Yeoh said could partly be a reflection of the frustrations over the current wireless Internet speed.
3G is a legacy service. It is developed using voice technology and it can’t cope with the massive amount of data that consumers are demanding. Devices such as iPhone and iPad have put a massive strain on current 3G networks. How many times have we tried to open files and experienced the buffering and streaming taking forever? The speed of our Yes’ network is just amazing. Once people taste it, they won’t go back to the old service, Yeoh said.
Under the Education Partner Programme, YTL Comms is providing free broadband services to 400,000 university students.
Quite interestingly, YTL’s 4G network will be SIM-less. Simply put, Yeoh said the network runs on a user ID that comes with its own mobile number.
You don’t need a SIM card and you’re not locked on to one device. All you need to do is log-on using your user ID (we call this the Yes ID) and all your information is accessible on any device. You can log on to multiple devices, all at the same time. It’s possible for you to receive a call and have it ring on your hand phone, your computer … or your home phone, all at the same time. You pick the device most convenient to answer the call or make a call from, he said.
Yeoh said the market is spoilt by the voice network and that Malaysia’s mobile call rates are far more expensive than Indonesia’s. So many people make so much money on voice. That is why there is no innovation on data, he elaborated.
Under the mobile number portability, existing mobile phone users of other operators can port over their numbers to YTL Comms to enjoy 4G performance and innovation.
Internet is here to stay. That’s the business of the future. We are targeting the youth market … to engage the students. They are the customers we want. We are not targeting customers like my father, he said.
On how YTL’s 4G differentiates from existing data networks, Yeoh said that Yes is a fully converged mobile network, and there is no other WiMAX operator in the country that is mobile.
In fact the services offered by Yes are among the first in the world. And this is just the beginning. We will continue to innovate and bring new services into the market, said Yeoh.
For 2011, Yes will offer the world’s first wireless quad-play service giving its subscribers access to voice, data and television all on a mobile network.
The next big thing is making the Internet relevant. This entails looking at creating content and developing applications and service to take advantage of the enormous flexibility that the Internet has to offer, and we are ahead of the curve on this. Eventually, everyone will focus on this, because performance will be a given.
Speed is fundamental but everyone will eventually be able to deliver this. The differentiator will be what can you go with that performance, how easy it will be for subscribers to use and how to make it as affordable as possible for everyone, he said.
Analysts expect YTL Comms’ entry into the telco sector to galvanise the industry further, heightening competition particularly in the cellular broadband space, given the company’s strong financial backing and track record.
PETALING JAYA: Competition in the mobile and Internet business is expected to heat up with the entry of YTL Communications Sdn Bhd‘s Yes service, and some analysts believe that a price war may erupt.
There’s a potential (for a price war). With YTL coming into the market, the probability is higher, CLSA Securities Malaysia Sdn Bhd head of research Clare Chin said.
She said the new entrant would also raise competitiveness among telecommunications companies while broadband operators would be worried about their margins.
Expectations surrounding the launch of Yes sent shares in YTL Comms’ parent company, YTL Power International Bhd, to their highest level in almost three years in early trade yesterday. The counter ended eight sen, or 3.19%, to RM2.59 but off the intra-day high of RM2.64.
An analyst said the new entrant did not bring in competition automatically. He said telcos would up the ante against each other to woo customers in a saturated market and that was where the competition or price war would kick in.
In crowded markets where penetration (of voice) exceeds 100%, it can be difficult for an operator to distinguish itself from its competitors if it can only offer the same services.
To differentiate, it needs to be able to offer something new and different with better value proposition, the analyst said.
While competition is good for the consumer, it is not so for the local telcos which have spent the last few years battling each other in a price war, where consumers ultimately reaped the benefits in terms of low mobile call and SMS rates.
Every player’s nightmare would be a price war, as margins would be pushed lower, hurting revenue, an analyst said.
YTL Comms’ Yes 4G wireless broadband service would charge customers nine sen for a minute of call, one SMS or 3MB of data.
And that’s before our rebates kick in, YTL Comms said in a teaser yesterday.
According to analysts, at nine sen a minute the service could be the cheapest in the market. However, they prefer to await confirmation from YTL on the price.
Sources said YTL would also be throwing in a rebate as high as 30% for its subscribers.
The more you use, the more rebate you’ll get. For example, if you hit a threshold of 3GB, the price will drop and if you hit another threshold at 5GB, the price will continue to drop, the source said.
A simple calculation shows that nine sen per 3MB works out to about RM90 for 3GB, giving users roughly about 2,000 emails.
CLSA Securities’ Chin did not discount consumers migrating to the latest network since cellular voice had already reached saturation.
She said consumers may want to choose a service provider that could offer them a better value proposition.
Investors are getting too excited, too early, Chin said, adding that today’s event was just a launch and the hybrid TV would only be launched by end-2011.
Analysts said the triple play, which offers television, Internet and telephone in a single connection, would be the next wave that could change the traditional consumption pattern among Malaysian users of telecommunications services.
Apart from coming up with new products and services to steal customers from rivals, they would also have to entice their existing customers to spend more.
Yes is expected to cover up to 65% of the peninsula from day one. The other areas would be covered later.
The company has spent some RM2.5bil for the Yes 4G infrastructure.
The 4G network will be SIM-less with the 018 prefix.
In a report, OSK Research said that YTL Comms would need to capture at least 300,000 subscribers based on the assumption of average revenue per user of RM100 a month, given the steep initial investment outlay and operating expenditure.
Although the prices of WiMAX equipment and devices have fallen by over a third in the last two years, we believe YTL Comms would probably have to provide a steep upfront subsidy to lure subscribers given the stiff market competition as well as high mobile penetration rate, it said.
YTL Comms is also launching its flagship store at Lot 10 in Kuala Lumpur today after the official launch of the new service.
Rightways 