Are providers bothered about user's grouses?

WHO would have thought there are really some very angry mobile phone users out there?
I was inundated with SMSes and emails from contacts and readers of The Star who read this column last week on dropped calls.

All the emails and SMS from readers have one thing in common - how frustrated they are over dropped calls, failed calls and distortion in voice. This has been going on for nearly two years.

Of the many emails received, one sender, Wang, said “while chatting with my father in Sabah I experienced three dropped calls. Naively, we thought it was his handset problem but actually it is dropped calls.''

For Kumar, dropped calls were a normal thing, but “when I looked at the bills, I would have three or four charges for calls for which I could not get through. Only in this country the consumers are secondary and the providers are the kings. People just don't mind the extra charges (but don't) capitalise on that.''

A senior editor says he faces dropped calls every day and it is really “frustrating.''

Ho said he noticed that his bills had “many calls made in less than five or eight seconds, and are probably due to the call problems ... providers are making substantial gains by charging the customers for the dropped calls.''

Indraveni is frustrated, she wants to change her service provider but has to wait until June. Dan questions if celcos are even providing the necessary network service for users “or (that they) only give priority to those who subscribe for the highest value.''

Soh wants the bad hats in the industry named. His belief is that if you name the party it will force the providers to buck up or they risk users leaving their network.

Tan demands that the regulator do something about dropped/failed calls. In his email he opined that the “MCMC should look at service level agreements. There should be no charge to consumers (for dropped calls) and users should be compensated for services below (par). MCMC, show your authority and take action against unethical providers.''

Ahmad calls for a petition to the MCMC on dropped calls. But who is going to take action against “unethical providers?''

Is it the users, the MCMC, or consumer groups? The issue of dropped calls is an old one. But its recurrence shows that no serious effort has been undertaken to tackle it, so what are the blockages and have the authorities done enough?

The readers will glorify the celcos if the service is good and while they may represent a drop in the ocean of the 30 over million users, they are still users and their voice should be heard.

Dropped calls may be a global issue and in the US recently, the result of a survey on dropped calls was made public because the regulator is vigilant. In South Korea and Singapore, the operators will be fined if the quality of service (QoS) drops to a certain level.

In Britain, the regulator, Ofcom, takes the operators to task and dictates the pricing for services there.

Here, the regulator has in the past done many surveys on customer service but that has been a while.

The last time it commissioned a survey was a handphone survey which was supposed to have ended in December 2010.

An engineer says the regulator does verify the network quality but unfortunately it is not done as frequently as subscribers would want it to be. I think they conduct verifications once every few months.

What can be done to improve the situation of dropped and failed calls?

To reduce or avoid dropped calls, there needs to be total redundancy right from the base station till the core network and that involves more investments; will the celcos invest more at a time when data is growing while voice traffic is coming down. Change the charging to one second block for postpaid and prepaid from 30-60 seconds now.

There should be open scrutiny of an operator's performance in the media for users to decide which operator they want to stick to; this will force improvements in QoS.

The suggestions are there but one thing that we, as users, cannot seem to understand is why are the operators not sensitive to the plight of their users, or are they just concerned about their margins. By right the providers should bend forward and backward to serve their users. More so since they earn the highest margins in Ebitda globally.

So will the situation change any time soon or do users have to take up ad space to tell providers and the regulator of their frustrations?

Deputy news editor B.K. Sidhu believes it's time to switch. She welcomes feedback on QoS, email: bksidhu@thestar.com.my
First published in The Star on April 8, 2011

Do we need to pay for dropped calls?

AT 3am someone was chatting away until her call was rudely disconnected. She re-dialled, talked for a while and again, the scissors was at work. It happened three times within the hour.

She knew it was not the MACC, Bukit Aman or MCMC.

Nobody was eavesdropping, the network just failed on her.

Her frustrations can be understood and the receiver's irritation understandable. After the third disruption, who has the mood to continue talking?

The irony of it all is that the network failed on her in the wee hours of the morning when it was a non-peak hour. Why?

“Perhaps their engineers are too stressed at work, they need to go for a holiday before they drop permanently on the ground,” quipped someone.

Were she not on any plan with her service provider she would have switched operator as she had been facing this dropped call issue for sometime now.

But she is not the only one facing this dilemma. There are so many frustrated users out there and it is not just one network; two big networks are causing all the heartbreaks. It is also not just dropped calls, but failed calls on the first attempt, static or interference, and voice distortions, which make you sound like a gorilla on the cellular phone.

Dropped calls occur when the handover from one cell to another is not clean, so to say. And failed calls are a failure of the call made due to traffic congestion.

For every call there is a specific time block, say 30 seconds or 60 seconds, and every time the call suddenly goes offline in the middle of a call means that you are paying for the full block.

And if you have to re-dail, that is considered another call, like two calls in less than 30 seconds but charged for two 30-second calls.

The consumer loses when his calls are suddenly cut off and the providers gain. It is a known fact that dropped calls are the easiest way to make money for the operators and this gain by the operators have gone unnoticed in many countries as users are unaware of the implications of dropped calls and the authorities are not taking the operators to task.

Malaysia has had cellular phone services for nearly two decades now and this problem continues to exist; in fact, it has been a roller coaster ride for users for basic voice calls.

While we understand that voice traffic is on the downhill and data is slowly becoming “king,” it does not mean that people who talk should face these disruptions so frequently.

This makes us wonder if the service providers are really investing to ensure there is enough capacity for all the new additions they get every month, and are they building and compromising voice.

If operators cannot get this basic service right with 3G and WiMAX, then we ought to revisit the priorities for 4G, LTE.

If this were to occur in South Korea, the providers would be in trouble as the regulator acts on every single complaint from users simply because they take service quality issues very seriously.

Here you wonder if anyone frequently checks on the quality of cellular service any more.

And often you hear operators talking about enhancing customer experience,' I really think they ought to look at this very seriously as if our voice calls go offline suddenly, what customer experience are they talking about? This is bad customer experience.

The question is how long more do we have to contend with dropped calls and still pay for them. Shouldn't the operators be transparent about this and tell us that we have experienced dropped calls and refund us?

Perhaps we should go through the provider's dropped call policy to get reimbursed for lost minutes. The easier alternative is to switch networks or port to those providers that are willing to refund. Waiting for rules on dropped calls to come out may take forever.

Deputy news editor B.K. Sidhu invites feedback on customer's experience on dropped and failed calls and voice distortions. Please email bksidhu@thestar.com.my

First published in The Star on Friday April 1, 2011

Can we prevent another international bribery scandal?

ALCATEL-LUCENT has been blacklisted for 12 months.

Axiata Group and Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) will avoid dealing with them till early next year. This ban affects both the international company, Alcatel-Lucent SA, and the Malaysian operations, Alcatel-Lucent Malaysia Sdn Bhd.

Alcatel has a big office at Wisma Denmark, Kuala Lumpur, and a pool of engineers, some of whom are expatriates. Internally, they must be counting their lucky stars that it is only 12 months, not 12 years, or else they may have to pack and return to France.

Other vendors who find Alcatel a challenger must be rejoicing as it is one vendor out of the race at a time when telcos/celcos are preparing for the next-generation network awards.

To recap, two days after Christmas last year, the international bribery scandal involving Alcatel broke out. The French giant, to avoid prosecution, decided to pay US$137mil to settle US charges that it paid millions of dollars in bribes to foreign officials to win and maintain contracts in Costa Rica, Hondurus, Taiwan and Malaysia.

The documents released by the US Department of Justice and Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) stated that Alcatel paid improper payments to secure contracts with Celcom Axiata Bhd, a unit of Axiata Bhd. Then, Celcom was a unit of TM and it awarded a telecoms contract to Alcatel that ended in 2009. The bribes totalled US$700,000 and were paid between 2004 and 2006 to consultant A and B. No details are available as to who these consultants are but purportedly said to be TM employees. They got paid off for supplying information on competitor's pricing.
After the scandal broke out, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had to jump in to investigate and the agency literally housed itself in TM and Alcatel for several days to weeks, interviewing dozens of people and fine-combed tonnes of documents to nab the culprit. At the same time, TM and Axiata conducted their own internal investigations.
In all these investigations, it would be good to see if there was any potential conflict of interest.
This week, MACC suggested that vendors who pay bribes be blacklisted and both TM and Axiata jumped in to blacklist the French company.
But the story does not end here.
The giver has been punished and the question on many people's lips is if any evidence has been unearthed to nab the takers those who took or shared the US$700,000. Will they be brought to the book or will this be hushed-up and some people get away scot-free? The names of the consultants are awaited by some with abated breadth.
For one, MACC has not finished its investigations and may announce more details next week or the coming weeks. The men are still at work and we just need to be patient.
Punishing Alcatel and making sure it does not have new business for a year or so can be bad for the company, but will it deter others and prevent a similar episode?
In Alcatel's case, it had to swallow the bitter pill for what it did. Why this bribery case happened is because there is a precedent set in the industry. It is a global thing in the world of telecoms some expect, some like to give, some ask.
Can it be prevented in the future?
A vendor representative says there is a need for greater transparency at all levels of the tender process from the technical evaluations right up to the commercial bidding and if no one takes, no one will give.
Another said: “To stop the spiral of cronyism and corruption and not let things build up until there are ugly consequences for our leaders, the Government and the nation, we need to call for open and transparent tender processes for all procurement for government-linked companies and government departments and agencies.''

Talk is cheap but execution is tough. However, if we are serious, then we have to prevent abuse and curb corruption at every step of the way. And if we need to learn from others, we should, as we can easily borrow some of SEC's books and force a rigorous audit process. That will get us somewhere or we can just sit down and do damage control every time it happens. The choice is really in our hands.

Deputy news editor B.K. Sidhu wonders why dropped and failed calls have become so rampant these days.

First published in The Star on March 25, 2011

Afzal's phone is just buzzing, people want to know where is the thosai shop in Barcelona

Afzal needs better arsenal to fight the fibre-optic war

IN four days Afzal Abdul Rahim covered all the booths that he could find in six halls at the recently concluded Mobile World Congress (MWC).

You may wonder what was the head honco of a fixed line company doing at a mobile congress?

Spying, would be the obvious answer.

Others from the fixed world were also there but he stopped at every booth, found out what he wanted before moving to the next. This is the congress where geeks, vendors and techo guys meet every year to craft the future of the industry.

It is also a showcase of future technology, applications and devices. MWC is also the base where jobs are negotiated as a lot of CVs are circulated.

I guess he had to pay for excess baggage for carrying nearly 20 kilos of brochures he brought back. But knowing him, and his witty self, he may have gotten across for free.

And after getting around through the halls he had time to find some Indian restaurants for thosai and tandoori.

I am talking about Barcelona and he is the CEO of  Time dotCom Bhd (TDC). This man can't resist mamak, Indian food and teh tarik.

He was there to find out what the future trends were so that TDC could arm itself to tap the areas of opportunities.

From the congress it is clear that data rules, and voice is down.

Data is growing and will grow at a faster pace as more people become comfortable with socialising, buying, selling and doing transactions online.

Since fibre can carry a lot more data, it will play a bigger role going forward and that is why the two bigger celcos are already working closely with Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM).

To recap, TDC was a company with big ambitions, big plans, but nothing materialised. It was bleeding for years since its listing in 2001 and many people lost a lot of money investing in this stock.

Its balance sheet had been flawed with red ink and in 2007 it reported RM160mil net loss. Afzal joins the group in late 2008.

Today TDC is a different creature.

From merely owning fibre, TDC has shaped up to have a data centre, a global IPT network, an equity in the Trans Pacific Cable System - running from Singapore to Japan and onto the United States in which Google is also a partner. It now carries some traffic from Thailand to Malaysia and onto the US.

It is carrying digital TV content for Astro and has 30,000 buildings wired up. It is fiberalising DiGi's network.

After Barcelona he sprang a surprised - TDC delivered triple growth in net profit to RM107mil for FY10. Revenue was up 27% - percentages never heard of previously - to RM317mil.

All this was led by higher contributions from data, particularly wholesale and global bandwidth segment. But its market share is only a meagre 5%, incumbent TM has the rest.

He is tough and results-orientated and wants the market share to rise to 10% and his aim is for TDC to be a regional wholesale player. This is another big ambition!

It will be tough as he is up against TM, and also the mobile boys, which are beefing up operations to ride the big data boom and they are all out for the same small and medium enterprises and corporate market.

TDC also has its share of problems. Deployment is its biggest issue, bureaucracy a hurdle, it is a capital intensive business and there is no common utility planning.

It is also not on analyst radar screens and by market capitalisation it is no where near TM, whose market cap is seven times bigger than that of TDC. It is RM14.2bil versus RM1.92bil.

Afzal is the 14th CEO of TDC. Perhaps TDC has finally gotten its acts right.

And no doubt Afzal has delivered seven quarters of profit, the journey is far from over as the war of fibre has yet to be fought. Its advantage - being small it has control over cost and pricing and can be as competitive as the bigger boys.

With the better results, Afzal has already waved his magic wand, perhaps he now needs a better instrument to fight the fibre war.

Deputy news editor B.K. SIDHU finds Afzal very witty.

Change for better corporate governance

A VOICE FOR CHANGE

THE walkout and calling for a boycott of the PLUS Expressways Bhd EGM on Wednesday by some minority shareholders is not surprising.

The minorities alleged procedural irregularities at the EGM and as they walked out of PLUS Menara Korporat, they were chanting the words “illegal EGM.''

But those who conducted the EGM denied any procedural irregularities, they claimed everything was done legally.

The EGM was called to vote on the UEM Group and Employees Provident Fund (UEM-EPF) takeover of PLUS for RM23bil or RM4.60 a share.

Despite the drama some want to think that it could have been orchestrated while others felt it was show of shareholder activism the promoters got the nod for the takeover.

About 800 people were at the EGM, and about 100 minority shareholder walked out although some had claimed the number to be “several hundreds.''

Whatever the number may be, what really irked the minorities was the voting procedure and the notion that even if they stayed, they could not have made a difference. To some, it was a “forgone conclusion that the proposal would be approved'' as the number of those in favour outnumbered the minorities.

The Wednesday minority walkout is neither the first one, nor will it be last. On Sept 24, 1999 about 500 shareholders walked out before a vote was called on the proposals tabled at the Unico Holdings Bhd EGM.

The bone of contention then was over the proposed restricted issue of 1 million new shares in Unico-Des Plantations Bhd at an issue price of RM1.50 per share to the 17 directors of Unico and Unico-Desa, thus entitling them to a proposed bonus issue.

Again on June 14, 2003 a group of minority shareholders walked out of Kejora Harta Bhd's EGM as they were angered by the voting process for the proposed takeover of Rampai Niaga Sdn Bhd, which holds the Body Shop franchise.

In almost any company, the shareholders' primary voice comes in their opportunity to speak and vote at general meetings. Investors today, are willing to exercise their rights; to express dissatisfaction and take management to task.

In fact, shareholder activism is gaining ground, be it in the United States and Canada or Asia. Malaysia has its own Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group and Japan Ombudsman.

Shareholder activism involves any action taken by minority investors to improve the governance of companies, ensure fair treatment of all shareholders and raise company value over time. It is a vital part of “market discipline,” which is a key component in corporate governance reform, says a report. Activism has an important economic role too as it contributes to stronger, deeper capital markets.

If the minorities want changes then they have to be more pro-active during EGMs. As an interested party, they must let the company knows how it should be run. Bear in mind that carefully constructed views are often taken seriously save frivolous or vexatious remarks.

Casino mogul Kirk Kerkorian is someone who believes in changing the company's direction and to do that he buys a small stake in a company and sits on the board so that he can direct the board to change. His stake may be small given the fragmented shareholder structure of the US companies but he is also a billionaire.

So is Carl Icahn. Also known also “billionaire Robin Hood,'' he is often refered to as a corporate raider turned shareholder activist who puts pressure on companies to increase shareholders' value.

It all boils to fighting for your rights. There is nothing wrong with that so long you don't trample others along the way. The voice of the minorities is as important as other parties, though the major shareholders always get the upper hand when come to investment and voting rights. Perhaps, to make a difference, we need more Kirk and Carl's here but shareholder activism should not be about short-term gains for the company or the investor, it should be about long-term value.

● Deputy News Editor B.K. Sidhu feels that the choice to make a difference lies within us.

First published in The Star on February 25, 2011

Set things right in the telecoms industry

SO much has been said by so many people over the past month or so about the way some things are done in the country's telecoms industry.
The hot talk from coffee tables to the blogosphere, the mainstream media and brought up in Parliament included:
● the way nine companies were assigned the 2.6Ghz or 4G LTE spectrum recently;
● the RMbil netbook scheme;
● the allocation and usage of the RM4bil USP fund; and
● the one that caught even the Prime Minister's eye allegations that one party is allowed to hog a large chunk of the 700Mhz spectrum band.
People are expressing their views whether via the mainstream media or blogs and some of the things they are saying cannot be ignored.
Some, unfortunately, went to the extreme. What with all the mud-slinging, even the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission was dragged in.

Malaysians will say a resounding ‘Yes’ to more transparency in the country’s telecoms industry, including the awarding of spectrum.

Had there be more transparency from the onset, could things have panned out differently? Damage control is not easy and some parties attempting this just seem to be failing miserably.
Whilst we understand the Government's perspective in delivering things for the rakyat and perhaps those involved got over-zealous in trying to get the latest technology to connecting too fast and too wide, the policy-makers should have taken a moment to ponder on what is really needed to go forward.
There are lessons to be learnt from this episode; it depends on whether one is willing to listen and make the changes.
A case in point is the award of nine spectra to nine companies. This begs a question are we opening the floodgates for a rationalisation? Previously, seven spectra were dished out and the mobile industry was forced to consolidate to three players.
Spectrum awards should be put to test after market assessment rather than letting the market absorb the number of players, and seriously, do we really need nine to serve 28 million people?
Now that we have rushed to 4G, has someone taken stock of what spectrum has been used thus far and how much of it has been used to provide services to the rakyat?
Giving out computers is a noble thing initiated by the Government. But the Government got a lot of flak as allegations mounted that some of those who got the computers free, sold them.
Perhaps some units were given to the wrong people but we cannot build a society on that premise. We need a proper approach to ensure delivery only to the deserving and those who will appreciate the netbooks.
It is plain truth that there is a need for a common infrastructure so that all players can use it. For the growth and benefit of the industry, a single party should not be running a common infrastructure. Does this need to be re-told, over and over again, and do we need to rush to do things again?
As for the USP fund, it was a great idea. It is noble to bridge the digital divide but has someone done real checks in the remote places to see if the money has been well spent before more is pumped to fund expansion? Checks and balances are vital so that the rural folks also get on the Web.
The Government wants the best for the rakyat in terms of technology so we cannot afford a confusing state of affairs.
All the brouhaha should serve as lessons to move forward. It is imperative that the views of the rakyat be taken seriously. There should be pooling of resources and most critical of all, that there be transparency all the way.
No way should we repeat a rationalisation exercise and that is the route the younger generation wants to avoid as they'd rather be going forward than consolidating and doing damage control.
● Deputy news editor B.K. Sidhu hopes to learn something new everyday.
(Published in The Star on Dec 10, 2010 - Friday Reflections By B.K. Sidhu))

You get a new date ... don’t stand us up again

“MARKETEERS, geeks, web geniuses, Internet superstars, network gurus and finance wizards. Over 200 different positions in sales and marketing, product, IT, network, finance, supply chain and general administration are available. Now is your chance to be part of a world class team that will shape the future of 4G mobile Internet''
That was how an e-mail from YTL Communications Bhd (YTL Comms) was worded.
And if you log onto its website you will hear half a dozen professionals, including its CEO, cajoling you to join the team.
If that is not convincing enough, go to JW Marriott Hotel in Kuala Lumpur from 10am to 4pm this Saturday. Bring your CV too. The website says walk-in-interviews are running from Aug 14 to 21.
YTL Comms may be finally getting to where it should have been more than a year ago.
It got a WiMAX 2.3Ghz spectrum and was to roll out services for wireless broadband. It set a July deadline for a big bang nationwide roll-out. But, July has come and gone, and we are still waiting.
However, to say YTL Comms is not doing anything would be unfair. Perhaps it is the speed issue. Which train is it on? The fast speed or one with coal-fired engine?
It has a hub in Sentul where many of its engineers are mapping out its network; it has a list of partners that is the envy of the industry; there is a RM2.5bil commitment to the venture and YTL Comms has even thrown US$1mil at innovators to get the desired content for delivery to enable it to stand out from the rest of the pack.
Let’s not forget the WiMAX and LTE (long term evolution) fight for 4G supremacy; that may have been a factor for the delay in YTL Comms’ nationwide launch.
All the same, you cannot ignore remarks from the industry like this one: “It looks like YTL Comms is finally putting its act together after months of no roll-out of its WiMAX service, being slammed with a fine and yet again missing a promised date in July.
“We hope the new delivery date of October/November is for real. What a delightful Christmas and New Year present it would make for the Government and the rakyat.’’
That YTL Comms is hiring is good for the market as it provides job opportunities. But expect increased movements in the industry. A CEO of a WiMAX company said his engineers are “sought after...and keeping them is a constant challenge.’’
YTL Comms may be working round the clock to roll out the service but one other WiMAX player recently had to retrench some workers due to network issues. Hopefully, this company can resolve its issues soon and return to the market with an improved offering.
Jalenas Sdn Bhd, which was supposed to wire up Malaysia with high-speed broadband over a year ago, only recently hired some expatriates to jumpstart the operations. Its CEO James Angelone is now working overtime to get things moving.
U Mobile Sdn Bhd, which has Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT) as its shareholder, hired Dr Kaizad B. Heerjee as CEO recently. We wonder when will U Mobile surprise the market with a killer offering since it has STT as a partner.
What the market needs are players that can widen the reach and deliver quality services at reasonable prices. The minimum speed offered should be one-megabit per second and they should realise that the age of 256 or 512kbps is over.
And since the whole premise of dishing out four WiMAX licences was to help increase broadband penetration rates, players who have not done much should get into delivery mode now.
Hopefully, by year-end we can all say “it was worth the wait after all.’’
(Published in The Star on August 20, 2010 - Friday Reflections by B.K. Sidhu)

Cellular industry needs to consolidate, save spectrum and avoid duplication

FROM seven players over a decade ago the cellular industry in Malaysia had to consolidate to a three-player environment.
We know the reasons for that and all the “bailouts.”
Along the way, a fourth player got a 3G spectrum and that brought the number of mobile players to four.
And not so long ago licences for WiMAX were dished out to help push broadband penetration rates in Malaysia. Now there are four companies with the 2.3GHz spectrum.
That adds to eight the number of players offering, or supposed to offer, wireless/mobile broadband services. Not all eight are in the fifth gear; some have not even rolled out services and others are still looking for investors and/or merger partners.
Those who are in the game are cherry picking, focusing on prime areas, leaving a lot of space uncovered and the rural areas with no decent broadband services.
Granted, we should not subscribe to a monopolistic environment and having more players creates competition. We need competition as this drives prices down and, hopefully, improves quality of services.
But is every player delivering and did anyone look at their business plan to see if they have kept up to the plan? If not, why are they not taken to task?
Essentially the situation has not changed from over a decade ago. In fact we have more players and, like the old days, “some are in trouble.”
In comes 4G technology.
The mere mention of 4G excites so many WiMax players for they believe they have the 4G standard to take them into the future.
Agreed, the 2.3GHz spectrum gives them the ticket but it is also too early to say which standard will reign as the battle for 4G supremacy between WiMAX and LTE (long-term evolution) is getting hot.
The 4G technology is the enabler of the next evolution in computing – mobility. Therefore it does represent an important shift in the market.
The need for 4G networks arises with the uptake of mobile broadband and smarter mobile devices. The 4G enables the necessary data support for devices and is much better equipped to handle the way smart devices communicate in small bursts. But you may have to wait four to five years before 4G becomes widespread.
In the country it is not clear how many 4G spectrum blocks will be dished out as the regulator is looking at a spectrum re-farming initiative.
Demand for capacity and speed will force 3G players to adopt LTE. Whether they have invested enough and capitalised on their 3G networks is left to be seen but they surely want 4G as that is the natural evolution.
But the 3G players are not the only ones eyeing the 4G spectrum.
The lure of big margins and growth of Internet/broadband business has made some prominent businessmen excited about its potential and naturally the lobbyists’ work is at play.
It is definitely good for new players to enter the industry as new ideas are welcome but if the players are not going to focus on investment and delivery, then it is a waste of spectrum and duplication of resources should be avoided at all cost.
So the onus is on the decision makers to ensure that when the bids for the 4G spectrum are called, there must be transparency and the award must be based on merit and delivery rather than political patronage.
As for the current eight-player environment, the decision makers should push for consolidation and cooperation, but no bailouts please.
They should get tough with players on non-delivery or else consumers will continue to get inferior services in parts of the country and any delays are seen as roadblocks to the Government’s dream of having a knowledge and innovation-based society.
Let’s learn from past mistakes and move on in the name of progress for the nation.
(Published in The Star On Aug 13, 2010 - Friday Reflections By B.K. Sidhu)

Telcos can afford to cut roaming charges

BOTH Singapore and Malaysia want to reduce roaming rates for mobile phone users by the year-end. The commitment was made in Singapore on Tuesday.
That would mean travellers to Singapore will pay less to call back home or even receive calls using their mobile number while in the republic. It would be the same for travellers from the republic coming to Malaysia.
The last time this topic came up was in October 2008 when a study for rate cuts in Asean was talked about but not much progress was reported after that. Hopefully, roamers will not have to wait two years before the topic is revisited.
Judging from the reports coming from Singapore, the celcos there are willing to sit down and talk about it, so hopefully some consensus can be reached.
The suggested rate cut for voice and SMS is up to 30% and 50% respectively between the countries.
SMS cost 5 sen within Malaysia but jumps to RM1 when sent from Singapore.
Similarly, voice calls locally are from 5 sen per minute within Malaysia but soars to RM2 per minute when coming from Singapore.
Tourist arrivals into Malaysia from the republic hit 12.7 million in 2007 and even if someone makes two calls a day while in this country, you can imagine the volume of traffic generated.
But analysts crunching the numbers are saying that any cut in roaming charges between the two countries are not likely to dent the bottomlines of any celco as the cut is too small to make an impact. What this tells is that the margins for roaming charges are huge.
In Europe, the mobile network operators are said to be making profits of more than 200% for mobile calls made by users while they are in another European Union (EU) country, and 300% to 400% for calls received.
To be fair, operators here do periodically offer roaming discounts and some even have rate caps. Despite that, roaming charges ought to be reduced by more than half.
Consumers in Europe are going to enjoy mobile roaming charges cap by July 1. The big four – Vodafone, Telefonica 02, T-Mobile and Orange – got together to try to circumvent the three-year-old legislation but failed. The laws were implemented to protect consumers against excessive prices there.
A report said the maximum permitted charge for making a mobile call while travelling will fall to 32p a minute and the rate for receiving calls will drop to 12.5p a minute.
For data calls, users will be cut off once they reach around £41.20 of data roaming charges per month, unless there is an explicit agreement with the customer to bypass that.
Even the authorities in Australia and New Zealand are looking to cut rates for the Trans-Tasman area. This is given the big volume of roaming traffic between the countries, as about one million visitors travel annually between the two countries.
Roaming is not cheap and it can make your heart stop when you get a huge bill after a fabulous holiday. The bill shock has forced many to leave their phones at home or look for cheaper alternatives such as call-back cards to make phone calls while travelling.
Think of it this way. If EU can push its weight around so many countries and operators to cut rates despite the court action by the four, surely, the regulators in Malaysia and Singapore can make the operators come to some consensus.
But do not allow operators to drag their feet or roamers may never see a cut. Roamers have enriched celcos enough, so now is the time for operators to show they will charge fair and competitive prices and give a fair deal for roaming. The cut would make a great New Year’s gift.
If roaming for calls and SMS is not reduced, then roamers may have to wait forever for data roaming charges to come down as their data bills are just going to continue skyrocketing. That is another issue waiting to be addressed.

Deputy news editor B.K. Sidhu is glad that her hometown Malim Nawar has finally made headlines the last few days and hopes an overhead bridge for the railway tracks there can be built to restore the charm of the once bustling mining town.
(Published in The Star on June 18, 2010 - Friday Reflections by B.K. Sidhu)

Making effective use of USP fund

IT is a RM5bil question and the issue of contention is why the snail’s route is preferred in its distribution.
That figure is roughly what is sitting in the coffers of the telecoms industry regulator, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
As at end 2008, the amount was RM4.7bil but would have surpassed the RM5bil mark in 2009 given that about RM800mil is collected each year for the universal service provision (USP) fund. Telecom players in Malaysia part with 6% of their annual revenues to help bridge the digital divide in the country.
The fund was set up in 2003 as players were reluctant to go into non-profitable areas to offer telephony services. A lot has changed since and the fund can also now be used to deploy broadband and cellular services.
MCMC has identified over 350 underserved areas in the country that will have telephony/broadband/cellular access, but the pace of the entire process from tender to contract award is just far too slow and complex and creates uncertainties.
Players continue to wonder why so much money sits idle year after year when it could be put to better use to provide access to a bigger population. That would also mean players being able to recoup some of the investments they put into the USP fund every year.
What is really the problem here?
Last year, the regulator called for several tenders beginning May, July and August, and up to now only very few contracts to wire up the underserved areas have been given out. The reason for the delay is unclear but certainly it points to the evaluation process.
“There is lack of clarity even in the upfront briefing process and you can imagine what we have to go through to fill the tender documents, and when we cannot meet deadlines, we are penalised,’’ said one industry player.
One particular contract all the players are hoping for a part in is worth RM1.4bil to RM1.6bil and involves several parcels. The contract was to be awarded last year but nothing has come out of the tender.
The whole evaluation process aside, players have been waiting for two years for answers from the MCMC on the “clawback provision’’ where contributors are able to get back up to 50% of their contribution by applying to roll out their services in underserved areas. When is there going to be any communication from the MCMC on that?
To make matters worse, the pace at which payments are processed after jobs are completed can test even the most patient of the players.
About RM200mil of jobs have been completed but only RM30mil has been paid out, and this leaves doubts if players will receive timely payment if they were to take on more jobs from the regulator. Also, they are uncertain if the regulator checks on the completed jobs to see whether they follow the specs.
The delay raises more questions than answers at a time when our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak wants things to be done expeditiously.
So if things are not working out smoothly and the USP fund not being put to effective use, perhaps the model isn’t working out as planned. A review may be necessary to achieve the desired results or else ambiguity will continue to sow doubts in the minds of many.
Whatever the issues, the Government’s 50% broadband penetration rate by year-end must be met and the underserved areas should not be the stumbling block when there is RM5bil waiting to be put to work.
● Deputy news editor B.K. Sidhu hopes for greater transparency, clarity and fairness in the RM5bil distribution issue.
(Published in The Star on January 29, 2010 - Friday Reflections by B.K. Sidhu)