TM thinks moves to prevent network hogging

SINGAPORE: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) (4863) may implement volume-based charges for its high-speed broadband (HSBB) service in a year to prevent a select few from hogging the network, said its top chief.

Group chief executive officer Datuk Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said that volume-based charging helps protect all consumers from a small minority of users causing network congestion and affecting the quality for all consumers.

TM had initially planned to implement a monthly data volume cap for its retail UniFi Packages when the HSBB service was officially launched in March, but decided to put it off after negative feedback.

"We are monitoring our network utilisation for now as we ramp up the number of users. But we do reserve the right to (do so) when the time comes," he told Malaysian reporters on the sidelines of CommunicAsia 2010 yesterday.
The company had previously said that it reserved the right to implement a fair usage policy (FUP) as it wants to ensure that its subscribers are not seriously impacted by unfair use of the service by a few.

Zamzamzairani said TM would give it a year to educate and help customers understand the rationale behind the need for an FUP.

Since the launch of the three consumer packages (VIP5, VIP10 and VIP20) over two months ago, demand has been higher for the VIP5 package, HSBB project programme director Ahmad Azhar Yahya said.

"But we can foresee that people will gradually move to the higher (bandwidth) packages later when richer content is made available," he added.

To date, the UniFi network rollout has reached 375,000 premises and more than 3,200 customers are using the UniFi service.

"Sales wise, we are averaging between 90 and 100 installations per day. We would like to push that further in the second half of the year, to 400-450 (installations) per day," said Zamzamzairani.

He added that TM was on track for UniFi to be made available in 18 additional exchanges by next month, on top of the existing four areas of Shah Alam, Subang Jaya, Bangsar and Taman Tun Dr Ismail.

TM hopes to cover 48 exchanges in total by the year-end, reaching some 750,000 premises.



From Jeeva Arulampalam