It was reported by BBC that Ofcom (the UK equivalent of our MCMC here) has complained that broadband users in UK are not getting the speeds they are paying for. Less than 9% of users received more than 6Mbps whilst the average users across the UK suffers actual connection speed of a paltry 4.1Mbps. Tsch…. pity them Brits huh.

What about the rest of the world… what kind of broadband speed that they are getting now?

Look at the Japanese enjoying a zippy 60Mbps connection. “Very fast, eh” “Arigatou gozaimas“. The Koreans as expected also enjoyed very high connectivity speed too. Greece and Mexico… that seemed more like our level of standard.

What hope do we have?

you may ask. I’ve given up hope on the WiMax fellas. Half of them are just interested in making press conferences just to keep their licenses alive, whilst a couple has actually spent money in rolling out services in Klang Valley but the service quality is still questionable.

Luckily there is still the much touted RM15 billion High Speed Broadband (HSBB) project by Telekom Malaysia to keep our MSC dream alive. It was claimed that HSBB will offer speed of up-to 1Gbps to commercial users whilst residential users will be offered speed from 10Mbps to 100Mbps.

By next year, some lucky residents in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Bangsar, Subang Jaya and Shah Alam are supposed to be able to enjoy the HSBB service. By 2013, an ambitious number of 1.3 million users are being bandied about.

But how much will this cost us? Telekom has not announced any figures yet but I read a blog posting from an inside sources that quoted RM500++ for the 10mbps package. Alamak…

finish lah like that.

Of course I have to hear it from the horses mouth. So I went and asked the director in charge of HSBB project, Ahmad Azhar. He was coy about divulging the actual numbers but promised that the cost will be ‘lower than what TM would have liked it to be’. Pressed into more details of what the actual offerings of HSBB will be, he said that TM is focusing on the triple-play package (telco talk for services that offered voice, data and video).

That’s great news because that’s what I have been waiting for. Triple play service would allow IPTV offering in Malaysia – full-scale interactive High Definition television channel. However, this will require fast fibre optic connectivity and HSBB will have to be properly configured with good quality switching equipments to make it happen. Another Screamyx in the making?

In the USA, two service providers are slugging it out in this fibre-optic services arena. Cablevision is offering 15mbps broadband for US$15.99 a month. There is also the 50mbps package by both Cablevision and Verizon prized at US$144 per month. In the UK, Virgin Media (reported by Ofcom to have the fastest service) offered 10mbps package at £14 per month and £35 per month for 50mbps (both exclude the bundled telephone fees). A basic triple play package from BT

Driven buy

with 8mbps download speed will cost £30.33 per month (exclude telephone charges).

Are those cheap or expensive?