After the firestorm that started as a result of its decision to impose caps on the newly launched UniFi high speed broadband (HSBB) service two days ago, TM has decided to issue a formal press release, following a short tweet, saying that the usage caps on all UniFi packages have been “temporarily suspended“. Note that it has not been removed. The irony of the entire situation is that, TM never intended to implement this in the first place, according to someone who tweeted me, who presumably has some inside knowledge of the matter. So, nothing in effect has changed. Nothing at all; so there’s really no need to rejoice.
TM reserves the right to implement a Fair Usage Policy (FUP) as we want to ensure that our subscribers are not seriously impacted by unfair use of the service by a few.
Take note of this statement in the press release as well:
…will not be implemented immediately…
So, it will be implemented, just not immediately during UniFi’s launch.
And hence the reason for the title of this post – because of the actions of “a few”, and I hazard to guess a “very very little few”, who consume perhaps the majority of bandwidth, the rest have to suffer. So, as they say, misery loves company – since a few are supposed to suffer because of their unreasonable actions, the rest have to follow suit and suffer along, in silence. Again, as I’ve mentioned before – this is taking the easy way out. Why not craft a better pricing scheme, while reserving the right to cut off the service completely for people deemed as “abusers”? Would this not be a better choice, and a much more palatable situation for the vast majority of us?
I think TM has handled the situation very poorly indeed. Shame on their marketing and PR teams. This is firefighting, something non-value-adding and could have been largely avoided had someone sat down and thought through the entire situation. And saying this and that is “standard industry practice”? Again, that’s just another easy way out to say you’re lazy to do proper homework. Just pick those that are good for the business, and discard those which are not, likely at the expense of consumer interests.
And finally, the Government has invested close to RM 3 2.5 billion of taxpayer money in this venture – what does it have to say? Does it not represent the people, the rakyat, who are, to put it mildly, pissed off at the entire situation? And the irony of course is this – TM, being a GLC, is an organisation built up from public funds a long time ago. From the taxpayer monies of our forefathers. Probably some from us as well. And we seem to be getting a raw deal in return; in other words, as some would say – “being screwed“.
Thanks to everyone who commented in the shoutbox and posts, on this matter to alert me.
What TM meant to say was, “If the other 2 ringgit ISPs can do it, why as a monopoly can’t I do it?” Thus the lame industry practice statement.
I would rather be angry at MCMC for all this bandwidth crap business. Our Internet penetration rate is not even at 20% but we have bandwidth cap nonsense. MCMC hasn’t been doing its job for a long long time.
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Da Alpha Dog Reply:
March 28th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
@AKilla, I think they’re referring to the other “world-class” ISPs overseas…
I don’t think the MCMC has a say in how a business should be run. You cannot legislate and force people to sell a service that they don’t want to sell.
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AKilla Reply:
March 29th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
The MCMC does not have a say in running business, but they should protect internet consumer rights and introduce policies that foster growth and innovation. If they truly want to leave it to free market forces, then they should abolish the ISP permit and licences bullshit. Just like there is no such thing in “world class” countries.
Bandwidth caps are a means to handle high demand for internet bandwidth to balance subscribers against costs. For example, in the US, the small time ISPs use caps to cope with low pricing schemes on their small infrastructure. The big ISPs do not do it, as they can cope and introducing it would only drive consumers to lower cost ISPs. We don’t have anything like that in Malaysia. Also our Internet services costs much higher comparatively, even against Singapore.
Furthermore, TM is subsidized by us, the rakyat. So what’s with the daylight robbery and poor quality of service?
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Da Alpha Dog Reply:
March 30th, 2010 at 12:34 am
@AKilla, honestly, I don’t know about MCMC’s charter to be able to comment. There is another ministry that is supposed to champion the cause of consumers, I think.
In the US, even the big ISPs were toying with the idea of introducing usage caps. It’s common practice in Australia, even the largest ISPs do it, and this is what TM is referring to when it talks about “industry practice”.
As for the other points, they are what differentiates Malaysians from the others. It is what makes us unique. For that, we should be proud
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AKilla Reply:
March 30th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
In Australia the government is stepping in by laying out the Internet infra and core services, instead of relying on bullies like Telstra. So as far as I can see they are moving in the right direction. Protecting consumer rights and enabling Internet access to the greater population.
In the US, they are toying with idea with the intent to kill off the smaller players that are eating into their lower market segments. Defeating them at their own game, so to speak. I’ve used Comcast and Qwest while in the US. TM is no where even close and we do not have mom and pop ISP companies saturating the market like the US.
We on the other hand are not moving ahead but backwards. Also our Internet usage vs population ratio is nowhere near any saturation point (like US) to warrant bandwidth caps. Are TM so hopeless that they can’t even cope with a minority of the population that they need bandwidth caps? Seriously, not even all of that are TM users. Its like saying Singapore needs bandwidth caps because they have reached 4000 subscribers.
When you have corruption and corporate has-beens with no vision, you are left with what makes us truly Malaysians.
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Da Alpha Dog Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 9:15 pm
@AKilla, I believe that’s what the government here is doing, sinking in RM 2.4 billion into the HSBB project. Every country is unique, so to speak, so a strict apple-to-apple comparison is not always possible, but of course that’s not an excuse for us to be so expensive. So, the question has always been – what do we need to do so that we can at least be on par with some developing countries?
And I guess if one were to enjoy the best of things, one should not be staying in Malaysia.
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when i first heard about HSBB, i got the understanding that it would be a “national fiber optic network” in which our many broadband players would be given opportunity to utilize it to deliver their services.
now we can see that TM is going to be the sole operator using it and do expect same bad experience as using streamyx later on. i agree with what Akilla said, our broadband penetration is on 20+% but yet we’re putting cap on the supposedly “fastest internet connection in the nation that’s going to revolutionize our lifestyle” internet service. from my layman understanding, this can only mean that the infrastructure/system that TM had, was meant to cater for less that the 20+% broadband users (should be way less since not everybody subscribe to streamyx/unifi or whatever).
but yet we’re seeing sky high fees which rival other countries in dollar to dollar comparison.
anyway alphadog, have u read the news today that TM says the services cannot be unbundled and that they can only deliver triple play services. that’s an utter lie if u ask me. what’s so hard to un-bundle the services?
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Da Alpha Dog Reply:
March 28th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
@Najibest, I think many were let down by the whole thing, but when the usage cap was suspended, they felt slightly better again. And I guess if one had too high an expectation about the rates for HSBB, they will be disappointed too. I wasn’t surprised at all – after all, why should HSBB be any cheaper than the current 4mbps Streamyx service with all that it offers?
And yes, the UniFi triple play services cannot be unbundled. Most likely because TM has already spent a lot of money signing up the content providers and the price has been built into the monthly subscription anyway. Again, they’re saying that this triple play approach is standard industry practise.
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i support the DAD ….is seem expensive and too many restriction………
we want freedom and painless surfing…
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It seem they don’t want to unbundle the 3 Unifi… packages.
In a way they are forcing us to take it or f off. Well, wireless is the only way. We need HSWiMax!!! lol
[Reply]
Da Alpha Dog Reply:
March 28th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
@mamakap, normal WiMax also cannot “kau tim” now want to move into HSWiMax?
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