If you’re planning a trip to Dubai in October and plan to keep in touch with your friends and colleagues with BIS and BBM, well you can very well forget about it or consider doing all your mobile stuff on another device that’s not a BlackBerry.

The Emirates’ telecoms regulator have confirmed that travelers to the city-state of Dubai and the important oil industry center of Abu Dhabi will — like the 500,000 local subscribers — have to do without BlackBerry e-mail, messaging and Web services starting October 11, even if their BlackBerrys are supported by carriers from other countries.

This doesn’t bode well for the country’s ambitions to be a business and tourism haven considering that about 100,000 travelers pass through Dubai’s airport every day, making it the busiest in the Middle East. The new restrictions could leave time-pressed business travelers hurrying through, many of them changing planes for other destinations, without access to their e-mail or the Web. That would put BlackBerry services out of reach for business travelers and others passing through the busy Mideast airport hub of Dubai, which handled 40.9 million passengers last year.

The good thing is, unlike the infamous camera phone ban in Saudi Arabia circa the mid noughties, travellers into Dubai and Abu Dhabi are still allowed to carry their BlackBerrys into the country and they can still make phone calls with the devices.

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	BlackBerry, Mobile Devices
	blackberry, blackberry ban in malaysia, blackberry ban malaysia, blackberry banned in malaysia, blackberry banned malaysia, blackberry malaysia ban, blackberry malaysia banned, KPKK, malaysia ban blackberry, malaysia to ban blackberry, MCMC, rais yatim, skmm, UAE, UAE ban, UAE BlackBerry ban

In what can be considered as a perplexing move, Rais Yatim who earlier ruled out the banning of BlackBerry services in this country yesterday made a statement saying that the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission is currently gathering detailed information about the BlackBerry service in the wake of bans of the service in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Rais said that the report from MCMC is expected to be completed sometime this week and that his ministry will be evaluating the information to see if a ban in Malaysia is required.

Wonder if a BlackBerry ban is a big enough issue to be discussed in Parliament? It’s definitely heaps better than talking in Parliament about this topic.

Looks like the 1.5 million BlackBerry users in this country are pretty nervous right now. Keep it locked on to SoyaCincau.com for the latest development on this.

[source]

	BlackBerry, MCMC/SKMM, Mobile Devices
	blackberry, blackberry ban in malaysia, blackberry ban malaysia, blackberry banned in malaysia, blackberry banned malaysia, blackberry malaysia ban, blackberry malaysia banned, KPKK, malaysia ban blackberry, malaysia to ban blackberry, MCMC, rais yatim, skmm

Both the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) and the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) said that social media savvy employees need to be careful what they put online about their employers or risk disciplinary action even dismissal for their words.

There is one caveat however and that is what’s mentioned must be “backed by facts and figures“.

Looks like this rule doesn’t apply to Parliament members when it comes to presenting arguments in the Dewan Rakyat.

In a recent Parliement session, Bandar Kuching Member of Parliament Chong Chieng Jen argued that TM favours UniFi customers of Streamyx. The MP claims that Streamyx subscribers are getting slower speeds after UniFi was launched citing that TM is giving priority to its fiber optic service subscribers.

What logic possessed him to think that his beyond us. According to the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture, Dato’ Joseph Salang, there are over 1.4 million Streamyx subscribers and about 6,000 UniFi subscribers’ and if you have any common sense you’d know that favouring 6,000 over 1.4 million doesn’t make much sense for TM.

What a douchebag.

Check out the Parliament session video after the jump.

[via]

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	Industry in General, Players on the Field, Streamyx, TM
	Bandar Kuching MP, Chong Chieng Jen, DAP, Dewan Rakyat, Joseph Salang, KPKK, Malaysian Parliament, streamyx, Streamyx Slow, Streamyx speed, TM, Unifi, UniFi speed

Working in earnest to meet the 50% household broadband penetration target by the end of this year, the Ministry of Information, Communications and Culture yesterday launched the BB Trail program in efforts to increase broadband awareness and uptake in rural areas.

The five month program beginning July 15, consists of road shows covering more than 500 locations across the country including Sabah and Sarawak.

In a press release made available to us, the Ministry says that:

At every stop, the BB Trail will conduct interactive games and contests related to Broadband, offering all interested participants the chance to win attractive prizes related to the National Broadband Awareness and Promotional Program.

The Program targets all age groups covering students and educators of all levels especially those in institutions of higher learning, entrepreneurs and small and medium businesses, parents, families and the public at large.

Through the implementation of the BB Trail, the public would be able to obtain choice information on how to subscribe to broadband easily, and get to select whichever service providers they prefer based on the different promotions and packages offered.

As of July 7, 2010, over 37% of Malaysian households have broadband connection. This equates to about 2.4 million homes out of the 6.3 million homes in Malaysia.

To achieve the 50% household penetration target by the end of this year, another 1 million homes will need to have broadband connectivity. With just five months left in 2010, about 200,000 homes will need to have broadband connectivity a month. That’s a huge ask and the Ministry has their work cut out.

As of Q4 2009, the country’s household broadband penetration stood at 31.7%. Don’t get us wrong, we’re all for the 50% broadband penetration target but it’s looking like the Ministry might not hit it.

Let’s wait and see.

Press release after the jump.

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	MCMC/SKMM
	BB Trail, broadband penetration malaysia, Household Broadband Penetration, KPKK, MCMC, MICC, rais yatim, skmm

Business Times reports that the Ministry of Information, Communications and Culture (KPKK) has setup what it calls a Broadband Action Brigade that will comprise of representatives from the ministry, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission and local telcos to identify and fix broadband problems faced by individual consumers or firms.

The report says the brigade is a part of the Government’s initiative to boost Internet accessibility in the country, enhance broadband speeds, cut subscription fees and meet the Government’s targeted 50%household broadband penetration by year end. That’s a mighty big ask for the three month old brigade that’s currently being headed by the ministry’s secretary-general Datuk Kamaruddin Siaraf. Right now the brigade meets every week to resolve broadband problems.

At the same time, KPKK has just launched a six-month long broadband awareness program to disseminate information on the benefits of broadband to the public, especially the rural areas to get more Malaysians to jump on the broadband bandwagon. We have to say, the program has a very catchy slogan though – “Get Broadband, Get Everything“.

On top of that Rais said that we can look forward to more affordable broadband fee as the the ministry is currently finalising its study on the subscription fees charged by various telcos to make them more affordable.

The report ended with Rais saying “It will be ready soon. It is not possible for us to standardise the charge by telcos, but we can make sure that it is affordable,”.

The PACIK is not going to like this one bit.

But seriously, ss cheap broadband really the answer to boost penetration? We’re still skeptical.

We tried searching online on how do we get in touch with this Broadband Brigade but we couldn’t find any leads. But if you have a complaint, you can try here and here.

[picture credit]

	MCMC/SKMM
	broadband action brigade, broadband malaysia, broadband penetration malaysia, cheaper broadband Malaysia, Communications and Culture, KPKK, Ministry of Information, skmm