Click for full infographic

Note: KBps indicated in chart is actually kbps which is kilobits per second (kbps), not KiloBytes per second (KBps). 1 Byte = 8 bits.

Content delivery service provider Pando Networks sampled over 35 petabytes of data from 27 million downloads in 224 countries to bring us this interesting information.

And it looks like when it comes to download speeds, not much has changed. South Korea still boasts the fastest download speeds in the world with an average of a whopping 17.62Mbps. That’s average ok. Some will get faster and while some surfers will get slower download speeds in Korea but the average gives a good indication that overall, the country enjoys enviously speedy internet connectivity fixed or mobile.

Other notable Asian countries on the list are Japan at number six with an average download speed of close to 11Mbps and Hong Kong at the tail end of the global top ten with an average download speed of close to 8Mbps.

Eastern European countries are well represented as well with Romania in second place with an average download speed of 15.27Mbps. In fact Eastern European countries take up four out of the top five countries with Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia all enjoying immensely fast downloads.

The The United States takes up 26th place in the study with an average speed of just under 5Mbps while China, home to the world’s largest Internet population, manages a rather unimpressive (relative to the other developed countries) 1.96Mbps.

The slowest Internet download, according to the study, is in the Congo, with an average of just 13 Kbps which is even slower than dial-up. Most of the world’s slowest countries on Pando’s list are located in Africa, where broadband access is sparse and mobile is often the most prevalent point of access for users.

Closer to home, Malaysia musters a not bad 1.4MBps download average on the list which is faster than Indonesia at 1Mbps download average but embarrassingly slower than Vietnam (close to 3Mbps), Thailand (2.1Mbps) and the Philippines (1.7Mbps).

Check out all of Pando’s study data presented in an interactive map right after the jump.

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	Industry in General
	average download speed, average internet speed, Broadband, broadband speeds, global, global download study, Inforgraphic, Internet

Happy Friday folks, just sharing this interesting infographic about internet usage and speeds from the turn of the century till now.

The data that intrigued us the most is the global average of data consumption a month — 11.4GB/month — but the whole visual makes for interesting browsing while you wait for your weekend to begin.

Head on over to after the jump and enjoy!

Read the rest of this entry »

	Cool stuff, Industry in General, Others, Players on the Field
	Broadband, History, infographic, Internet

Most if not all broadband plans especially wireless comes with a fixed amount of monthly usage quota. Upon reaching the limit, your speeds are throttled down to snail pace and there’s nothing much you can do until the next month’s cycle.

Now P1 has introduced an option for you to purchase additional usage quota upon reaching your limit at RM10 for 2GB. That’s RM5/GB for additional use. The good thing is that you don’t need to pay upfront and additional quota can be activated immediately on SelfCare and the extra add-on is then billed to your following month’s statement. It also comes with 30 days validity so no worries if you can’t finish it before your next billing cycle. To purchase, just log in to self care and you may buy immediately.

P1 isn’t the first to offer such add-on quota option. Celcom 3G Broadband too has something similar called Volume Purchase for power users that need more data than what they originally subscribed. As comparison, Celcom charges RM12.88 for 1GB and RM38.88 for 5GB.

For more information on P1 add-on usage quota, head to P1′s postpaid broadband page and click on the Increase your Quota section.

	P1, Players on the Field
	Broadband, P1, P1 4G, P1 Broadband, top up, Usage Quota

Australian telco Singtel-Optus is facing trouble over a series of advertisement which the government finds deceiving under the Trade Practices Act. The ad as shown above advertises 150GB of broadband for $59.99 which is split for 75GB for off peak and another 75GB for on peak usage. Sure enough there will be throttling involved like any other telco however the tricky part is that your entire broadband is throttled once your 75GB of on peak usage is used up.

As a normal consumer, you probably expect off-peak and on-peak quotas to be treated separately. However with this unique throttling policy, your entire 75GB off peak quota is simply burned out once on-peak is depleted. To make matters worse, the throttle speed is a pathetic 64kbps download, making it unusable for rich media websites. The main issue here is that consumers will not get to fully enjoy 150GB as claimed and the telco could be facing a fine up to A$1.1 million.

This is something for our local telcos to take note when it comes to advertising. By the way, did you notice Optus uses ‘yes’ on their brand? We wonder if YTL got their yes branding inspiration from them.

[ SOURCE, 2, 3 ]

	Industry in General, Players on the Field
	Advertising, Australia, Broadband, Broadband Ads, Misleading, Optus, singtel, SingTel-Optus

Maxis is reported to be offering commercial service for its FTTH (Fibre To the Home) broadband. This is similar to TM’s UniFi service that uses Fibre Optics to deliver High Speed Broadband.

From what we discovered, there’s only a 6Mbps plan at RM118/month for existing Maxis subscribers or RM158/month for non subscribers. The plan comes with 40GB monthly quota and tied to a 24 months contract. As comparison, UniFi offers 5Mbps for RM149/month with 60GB download quota.

Just like the recent P1 add-on package, you can add 3G broadband that comes with free modem from RM20/month with 1.5GB quota. While UniFi started charging RM200 for installation, Maxis waives it together with its registration fee for now. When you sign up, you’ll also get a free home gateway, a DECT phone and VOIP calls worth RM275 monthly.

At the moment, Maxis has not updated its HSBB site with the commercial plans above. According to their site, the service is only limited to Bandar Utama 11, 12 & Sierramas. For more details or to register interest, check out Maxis HSBB page here.

[ SOURCE ]

	Maxis, Players on the Field
	Broadband, FTTH, HSBB, Maxis, Maxis Broadband, NGBB

Thanks to social media, we’ve gotten an early peek on Celcom’s new 3G Broadband plans. A twitpic from @TianChad had broke the news on the broadband offering.

From the picture, the packages are as follows:

• RM48/month – up to 384kbps – 1GB quota
• RM68/month – up to 512kbps – 3GB quota
• RM98/month – up to 3.6Mbps – 5GB quota

Those who subscribe from now until 31st August will get RM10 off the monthly subscription for the first 3 months.

We will update if there’s more details announced later.

[ SOURCE ]

	Celcom, Players on the Field
	3g broadband, Axiata, Broadband, Celcom, Celcom Broadband

DiGi plans to invest RM75 million over the next three years to roll out 3G broadband in Penang and Sabah.

DiGi’s Head of Strategy and New Business, Albern Murty said DiGi’s broadband coverage now stands at 31% of Penang’s population with plans to cover the whole of Penang by August.

DiGi 3G broadband covers Tanjung Tokong, along Gurney Drive, Penang International Airport, Queensbay Mall and parts of Georgetown.

DiGi says it has invested in High-Speed Packet Access technology to deploy a 14.4 Mbps for fast download and upload speeds of up to 2Mbps.

We’re a bit sceptical about the 31% population coverage in Penang though, as the source didn’t specifically say if its 3G or DiGi’s EDGE service combine. Remember, before 3G, DiGi claims EDGE service as broadband as well.

No words on other states in the report.

Read SoyaCincau’s coverage on DiGi Broadband:
DiGi 3G Network Discovered
DiGi to Launch 3G Services by End March 2009
DiGi 3G Broadband: 7.2Mbps Mobile Internet Revealed
DiGi 3G Broadband Official Packages
DiGi 3G Broadband Extends Pre-Promo Coverage in PJ
DiGi 3G Broadband Now with 50GB Quota

More onfo on DiGi Broadband plans and packages HERE.

[Source, Source II]

	DiGi, Players on the Field
	3G, Broadband, DiGi, penang, sabah

P1 CEO Michael Lai mentioned last week that new plans were on the way from P1 and here it is.

Technically the “new” plans are just revised pricing from the old plans. Not much difference from the earlier plans but the revised pricing means some packages have gone up in price and some down but generally cost of ownership is now more for shorter subscription contract.

Here are the details:
At a glance

• UPDATE-090204: P1 updated the new plans table. P1 Office Standard plan now comes with 500kbps upload. Previously was a pathetic 150kbps. For an additional RM60 home users can enjoy unlimited data. Those who can afford it, this is not bad.
• P1 modem is no longer free – 12 month contract subscribers will have to pay RM199 for the modem (original price RM999). For 24 months contract the P1 modem is still free
• Looks like you still pay nothing upfront
• The fastest home user plan – P1 Pro – comes with with increased data usage. 40GB/month (previously only 20GB)
• Office plans now come with unlimited data usage

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	P1, WiMAX
	Broadband, fair usage policy, inlimited data, michael lai, new wimax plans, P1 WiMAX

The brains at Google have just launched MLab – “an open platform that researchers can use to deploy Internet measurement tools” (as Google puts it).

From Google Blog:

At Google, we care deeply about sustaining the Internet as an open platform for consumer choice and innovation. No matter your views on net neutrality and ISP network management practices, everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they’re getting when they sign up for broadband, and good data is the bedrock of sound policy. Transparency has always been crucial to the success of the Internet, and, by advancing network research in this area, M-Lab aims to help sustain a healthy, innovative Internet.

We just love the way that reads. ISPs, we hope you’re taking heed because we all know, you are all taking the heat (from a lot of unhappy and unsatisfied customers)!

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	Industry in General
	best effort, best practice, Broadband, google mlab, internet service provider, internet tools, ISP

WiMAX is officially available in Malaysia next week! We will be witnessing not just one, but TWO WiMAX operators rolling out their services in the country.

Packet 1 will be having their official launch on next Tuesday August 19th in Kuala Lumpur while another operator REDtone will be launching theirs on the next day August 20th in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

Both operators will be launching at different ends in the country and its obvious that the two won’t be competiting heads-on in the same market segments for now. We are unsure on the reason behind such roll out strategy but both would have different challenges to face.

What to expect?

P1 W1MAX by Packet 1 has been showcased to the public several times namely at WCIT and the recent PC Fair. We are aware that they have a working LAN based WiMAX modem and initial feedbacks we seen have been encouraging.

Before this, Packet 1 has been actively promoting its trial programme and recently it has also mentioned that Packet 1 managed to sign up its first subscribers. This not only incidates that Packet 1′s W1MAX is ready for service but it also marks as Malaysia’s 1st ever WiMAX subscription in the country.  At present time, we are still unsure of their current coverage areas and we hope to find out soon during the launch.

It is rumoured that P1 W1MAX would be available at 4 packages with competiting speed offerings with different price ranges. Their biggest competitor would be Streamyx at the moment and judging on evaluations we’ve seen, the performance of P1 W1MAX is something existing Streamyx users would look forward to.

As for REDtone, they have not given any clues on their WiMAX devices or offerings. There was nothing tangible to date and we are interested to see what sort of devices and packages available for subscription during launch in Sabah.

After much hype in the press, 2 operators have finally came out to launch officially in the market. The other 2 WiMAX operators, YTL and AsiaSpace have yet to make announcement on their commercial services to date.

Watch this space for more updates!

Related Links
REDtone to roll out WiMAX by month end
P1 W1MAX
LiewCF’s WiMAX Experience at PC Fair

	P1, Players on the Field, REDTone, WiMAX
	Broadband, Internet, Malaysia WiMAX, Official Launch, P1, P1 WiMAX, REDTone, sabah, WiMAX, Wireless