Wimax is coming as well..

Idea originated from Star' Bizweek 21 May 2005

I took this title to enable better seachability of spider...

Wimax is also coming...
NasionCom Berhad, Malaysia foremost IDD provider, is very much earger to put off its stereotyped of being the cheap phone call provider and wait no time to move on. According to them, they are doing well in other business segment, one of such is managed services which happens to yield profit margin of 30%-40%. Similiar services are also strongly engaged by other top guns in Malaysia such as Vads of Telekom Malaysia, even Digi, Maxis, Celcom all have such departments. Because why ? They have the infrastructure. If you want the full list of such potentials... please refer to Malaysian MCMC site.

Anyway, despite their falling stock prices..which the company blames on wrongly speculation about the company's image as IDD provider is no big deal. Their next big plan is into Wimax, a high speed + wide area wireless Internet facility. So what is all these about, wireless Internet ?

Fixed Broadband:
1. TM Net streamyx
2. Maxis
3. Atlas One
4. NasionCom

Wireless Internet come under 3G, EDGE, GPRS. (The signal is coming from telco existing base stations)
1. Maxis
2. Digi
3. Celcom

Wi-fi (Wireless Fidelity) (Short range internet access)
Wifi requires a backbone which serves the short-range mini station.
1. Airzed
2. Time Telekom (they used to have a service called webbit)
3. CNX (malaysia emerging company as the next generation broadband provider)
4. The controversial Jaring's MY015

Wimax (Worldwide interoperability for Microwave access)
The idea of Wimax is such that using just limited base station, you shoot the signal into a long long distance... For instance, having a base station in Shah Alam, you can serve the whole Shah Alam for it. Compare to Wifi, you need the service of Stackbuck Coffee, Coffee Bean, LongBlack and etc.
1. Nasioncom
2. CNX

It is very obvious that all these are going to clash with each other... You would soon find yourself flooded with Internet connections at popular places like Bangsar and KLCC, with option to choose from so many of them. This could be the reason why Maxis & Celcom are retailing their wirelessCard at such high price RM1400 while keeping monthly subscription low. They probably figure that this is one way to make people loyal to the service.

So we are expecting more activities coming soon. One thing for sure, the cyber cafe is going to go bust soon. The VOIP market is also expected to grow thiner soon, because as soon as Internet connections are widely available, the younger generation would rely on things like messenger to converse with others, only the older generations are still unsure of what is happening. This is why Redtone, on 11th may 2005, acquired certain stocks in GreenPacket, apparently, Redtone is buying favor from GreenPacket, where the latter is developing applications for mobile internet. With such purchase, my evaluation is that Redtone will be given priority as the VOIP provider to host(airtime) GreenPacket's future application.

Why GreenPacket needed such aid when they have other options to choose from ?
--> To ease cash flow. They are very much in R&D stage now.

Why Redtone needed to rely on GreenPacket's R&D ?
--> Even though Redtone has R&D team, they might not have the time and not willing to invest further.

Suprising, none of them ever make out explicit call for developers to come up with new applications. Probably most of them (infrastructure provider) wanted to reserve such revenue to themselves as well.

All these going to get everyone excited... But is it going for real ? Besides making phone calls and chatting, what other things most people would like to do ?

The players have two options:
1. Create free applications(software) to keep customer loyal to their service (Internet connection).
2. Make service free and sell application (or based on Montly subscription)

------evalet---------------------
1. what is the future of IDD ?
2. what is the future of cyber cafer?
3. what is the difference between wireless internet & broadband?
4. what is the difference between 3G,EDGE,GPRS, wimax, wife?
5. what is the difference between wifi and wimax?
6. why is Redtone buying share from GreenPacket?
7. Why is WirelessCard so expensive ?
8. Can Internet ever be free?
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Comments

Brandon Teoh said…
http://www.marcusevans.com/events/CFEventinfo.asp?EventID=9701
Brandon Teoh said…
http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/ta/2005/04/19/wimax-rollout-today/
Azwin G said…
Your article is a fair assesment of the telco scape here in Malaysia. Thanks for commenting on infrabits