Friday March 26, 2010
FRIDAY REFLECTIONSBy B.K. SIDHU
IS RM149 a month for 5-megabits per second (Mbps) a steal or pricey?
It comes with free voice calls, some TV channels and other stuff. That is UniFi, Telekom Malaysia Bhd’s latest offering in high speed broadband (HSBB).
In the fast lane of broadband, speed is king. Without speeds of 5-50Mbps, and capacity, don’t call it HSBB.
Your waiting time to surf and download with 5Mbps is lower than 1Mbps. It is as though you are driving a Mercedes sports at top speed. If you want faster speed, say 10Mbps, pay RM199 a month and you may feel you are at the wheel of a Ferrari or Porsche.
But if you are one of those speed-hungry surfers, fork out RM249 a month for 20Mbps and you can tell Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes that your speed may surpass his Lotus 1 car.
In comparison, Time dotCom Bhd’s (TdC) offer is RM149 for 2Mbps, RM249 for 5Mbps and RM329 for 10Mbps per month and all come with a 50Mbps booster.
Today, high speed is here on fixed networks, from TM and rivals TdC and Maxis Communications Bhd in some areas. However, only a small pocket of the population can enjoy speeds of up to 50Mbps. The majority still has a long time to wait as they still have to contend with 256-, 512-kilobits per second or 1Mbps.
But change has come, and TM and TdC’s efforts for bringing that change should be lauded.
TM is probably the only player globally that sped up the entire process of bringing fibre-to-the-home (FTTH). It also marks the beginning of the end of the copper wire era although the entire phasing out of copper may take up to two decades.
What is important the first step has been taken.
Even rival TdC CEO Afzal Abdul Rahim is singing praises of TM as to him, a “lethargic and slow moving organisation is able to bring FTTH in record speed time. It says a lot of the thinking that went into it and this is cutting-edge.’’
Both Afzal and REDtone Interna-tional Bhd chief executive Zainal Amanshah were surprised at the competitive pricing. They are not the only two that had expected TM to outprice itself like it normally does. However, those tweeting on Twitter do not think TM’s pricing is reasonable.
Whatever the strategy that went into packaging UniFi, it is a clever one; bundling a lot of things without IPTV is not enough for TM to fully monetise its fixed line assets.
The assets have been left parked for too long and fixed line voice revenue is flat so this new broadcasting business or triple play, if done right, can be one of TM’s revenue generators. That may bode well for TM but an analyst feels that since the pricing is very competitive, the “endgame may be in sight for over-eager wireless broadband start-ups.”
Zainal also believes it would be tough for players to compete with TM on the retail end if they do not have value-add, including IPTV as TM offers a lot of free stuff for its UniFi packages. But he believes there is hope for those who want to offer high speed using TM’s network to corporate users.
Expect teething problems with UniFi over the next six to nine months. But let’s just hope the era of complaints and disgruntled users of TM service will be truly over from now, and TM keeps to its promise of quality and speed.
B.K. SIDHU is deputy news editor and hopes the government will intervene to bring down broadband prices for the benefit of the consumers.
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/3/26/business/5937566&sec=business
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