1 Gbps Home Service launched

Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) officially launched its 1 Gbps symmetric service for the residential market.

Approximately 800,000 households, out of a total of 2.2 million households in Hong Kong, are wired to receive the service. The 1 Gbps symmetric service is priced at US$215 per month.

Tiger!

10 days and counting...

Malaysian Mentality

From Screenshots:

Malaysian Mentality

You are a 3rd World Country
(A gentle reminder to all Malaysians)

Progress is not solely about prosperity
Nor buildings that look pretty
You may have the KLCC
But some places like Penang are still dirty
So you are still a 3rd world country because of your mentality

You try to beat the queue to get a taxi
And don't even bother about road courtesy
Not to mention parking indiscriminately
Without signalling you overtake randomly
And abusing lanes for emergency
Rising deaths on the roads is how u celebrate festivity

You created the MSC
To emulate Silicon Valley
You talk about high technology
To preach about the PC
But yet broadband is denied to many

You also can't supply stable electricity
Your roads have potholes and are bumpy
And tyres fall off your LRT
So this is Malaysian quality

Let's create the best schools, roads and toilets in the country
Are what Malaysia Boleh should strive to be
But instead Malaysia Boleh is so funny

You break records just to make yourself feel happy
Decades passed but this mentality I still see
Will this carry on till the next century?
Or will this change when we turn 80?

You are helpless and just let it be
Let it be
Will tomorrow be better for you and me?
15 years from now come 2020
if this goes on you will still be
just another 3rd world country because of your mentality.

Coldplay single to be heard first on phones

The strong interest worldwide in ring tones has led the labels to see the prospects of new profit potential.

Cingular Wireless is launching a new promotion it hopes will make the charts, offering singles from top bands as ring tones even before they've been released. The program is launching with a new song from British band Coldplay from EMI Group's Capitol Records, but other labels will be included over time.

The aim is to draw attention to ring tones as a way to promote albums before their release.

Metro Wi-Fi plus mobile VOIP

Craig Cameron looks at where the $$$$ is in terms of deploying metro-Wi-Fi.

Voice sells

For the last 100 years, more money has been spent on voice calls (whether fixed line or cellular) than on data. If you look at cellular networks around the world today, more than 80% of operator revenue from those networks is voice, not data. If a metro Wi-Fi network could offer a mobile voice service that had comparable quality to a cellular network at a much lower price than the cellular network, this would represent a major incentive for a service provider to roll out large-scale metro Wi-Fi networks.

High-speed mobile Wi-Fi works today

Mobile voice across a metro Wi-Fi network does have some significant technical challenges. Unless a metro Wi-Fi network has an architecture and technology that supports mobile voice, metro Wi-Fi will be challenged to offer an alternative to cellular networks. The right architecture is integral to producing a low latency network with fast hand-off for a seamless roaming experience. Robust backhaul with voice traffic prioritization is also a must.


Mobile Wi-Fi handsets-a-plenty

We are now seeing some low-cost, high-quality mobile SIP phones coming onto the market, and virtually all major cell phone manufacturers have commitments to supply dual mode Wi-Fi/2.5G or Wi-Fi/3G phones in the next six months.

A number of major carriers are adding significant support to mobile Wi-Fi by endorsing an emerging standard - UMA Technology - that supports the coexistence and seamless handoff between Wi-Fi and traditional cellular networks.

Metro Wi-Fi as low-cost infrastructure

In the same way that the largest cellular networks are now in developing countries, the greatest need for metro Wi-Fi networks supporting high quality mobile voice will be in Asia, South America, the Middle East and Africa.

Metro Wi-Fi provides the lowest cost means of rolling out voice services to those communities that have little or no existing telecommunications infrastructure. This, of course, does not mean that there will not be significant metro Wi-Fi networks built in developed markets. Metro Wi-Fi networks and large campus hotzones are being deployed by large telecommunications service providers as a complement to their existing 2.5/3G networks.

Broadband, Fast & Cheap

We need more competition to drive down prices and increase broadband adoption, according to Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik.

To ensure that it happens, Dr Lim told reporters that he was prepared to take drastic action such as unbundling the local loop to boost competition.

"I don't care who it hurts," he said, vowing again to make it "fast and cheap."