Philip Khor

Rationale for Celcom’s iPhone Data allocation is quite puzzling!

celcom iphone data

I have quite shallow understanding of pricing in terms of Marketing but here are my thoughts:

For the i68 plan, why offer 800 MB of data when Digi and Maxis are offering 1GB?

Of the three comparison tables, it looks like the winner for the most CONFUSING table of information goes to Celcom!

Celcom appeals to a certain demographics, which is quite facinated when they’re presented with ALL the information. Ok, I might be overstereotyping here, but think about it. It is usually the manager and business people who love factsheets before they buy.

I’d say Maxis plans are the most cunning. Pinch penny users go for Digi naturally because of their lower numbers, but if you consider living out your entire 12 or 24 month contract with a carrier, it is neck-and-neck between Digi and Maxis. As a Digi user myself, I’d give Maxis a shot if I were to re-commit to another smartphone contract. Digi just plain suck. The network sucks — data is unavailable all the time.

Back to the original argument, why does Celcom offer 800 MB?

The answer (I speculate) is that … their demographics would think 800 MB is greater than 1 GB.

And guess what, people will ask this to their sales people when buying the phone “Eh, why Maxis one gee-bee, and Siau-com got 800 emm-bee?!” More opportunity for sales people to confuse, make a pitch and close the deal.

Smart move, Celcom. Hats off.

Links to iphone page: Celcom | Maxis | Digi

14 months 15 days — that is how long I had my iPhone 4 in Malaysia before the new one is publicly available.

Rumour has it that the 4S is being released on Friday 16 December 2011. I got my black iPhone 4 on 2 October 2010. So that’s just about right.

I reckon if you bought yours on launch day MALAYSIA, chances are the iPhone 5 will be announced July 2012 available somewhere Sept/Oct 2012 — just about time when my subsidized 2 year contract with DiGi ends.

love it!

As part of my postcrossing.com  project, I wrote a card to Italy, this guy living near AS Roma’s base about our passion for Football!!

writing to italy

Tonight I will go to the stadium to witness Arsenal training session with Yang Wei.

Thanks to the guys from Lowyat, my friend Reza and I both won a pair of training passes. It would be fun to compare the difference in styles between Man United. I have vague memories of 2009 when I went for two games, against Harimau Muda.

I don’t know what to expect, other than to enjoy myself and the atmosphere.

I have a sneaky feeling the atmosphere will be electrifying, highly charged affair as the supporters are fresh from their Bersih rally! Haha..

(1pm edit)
At Aun Kheng Lim buying salted Chicken. The purchase process is like a Ferrari F1 pitstop — very efficient and fast. Puts Mc Donald’s drive-thru to shame!!

Editor’s note: I feel we need a guide to which providers to choose from, and to explain with technical details on the differences between the providers we have in Malaysia.

http://philipkhor.com/i-dream/?s=latency

250511: What matters in Internet Speed

Let’s say down the foundations and facts for this argument of “how much speed do we need?” and “what metrics do we count speed by?” and “is your package good enough for you?”

A. Types of access

1. TM Net Streamyx – depending on when you signed up, you could be paying RM 88 for 1 mbit down 0.3 mbit upload or about RM 150 for 4 mbit down 0.5 mbit upload. Ping / Latency is usually under 50 ms for local servers. More on that later.

Read the remainder of the entry…

As most AMEX users in Malaysia know, Starbucks is offering a buy one free one promo on your coffee from April til October. Sounds good? Heck yea! I enjoyed many cups of the drug with my friends.

I thought to myself, how can Starbucks earn from this? Or… perhaps how much is AMEX charged / charging for this promotion. I have a few hypotheses.

1. The average coffee price is RM 16. RM 2 goes into the product. RM 3 goes to the overheads and staff salary, and the remainder RM 11 is the net profit per cup.

2. AMEX is paying Starbucks RM 3 per transaction for this promotion. (rough estimate) Why? They’re encouraging people to swipe their pretty-much-useless-elsewhere card. Usually we use Visa / Mastercard for our purchases. But of late, I am VERY sure their average transactions has seen a healthy boost as a result of this, and other AMEX promotions.

3. Tell me, what data is available on the Credit Card transaction slip that you sign?
a. Location of Starbucks outlet
b. Date (and derived Day) and Time of the month of your visit.
c. Amount spent per transaction

From this simple information, Starbucks is able to obtain vital research data on their customers. They know I went to OUG on Saturday, Mid Valley on Sunday and Pudu branch on Monday. They knew exactly what time I have my coffee. Better yet, they also know what I ordered (notice they swipe your card on their OWN pos machine?)

By developing spending habit pattern charts of their customers, whoa… my mind is just blown at the possibilities! Not that they’re interested to track my every move. But they can plan their capacity, how and where to promote their products, demographics and level of coffee-addictedness their customers are, and many more.

Not that I’m preaching “Thou shall be weary of using credit card for purchases.” no. I mean, these information are available, and you’re pretty much giving it out freely at your own will. I’m just facinated at how this campaign is able to pay for itself.

1. Starbucks’ share of the discount is offset by more frequent coffee addicts.
2. AMEX, the huge benefactor of the deal gets consumers to swipe more (in general) hence charging people interest on unpaid debt over the long run.
3. Coffee addicts think they got an awesome deal when they can have TWO americanos for RM 7.50 or… Two Fraps with everything add-on for about RM 17 a pop.
(sidenote: also good conversation starter, for guys to pick girl up… “hey can i buy you a coffee.. AMEX has this great promo..)

Hahaha…

Read the rest of this entry »

Excerpts from DUMC bulletin:

Declarations_Sarawak_Election (ms word DOC file)

Sarawak 10th State Elections 16 April 2011

“If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Polling day is this SATURDAY, 16th April 2011. There are 31 Parliamentary seats, 71 State seats in Sarawak. Let us stand together with our Sarawakian brethren in prayer as they face their state elections. Pray:

1. Give thanks to God for His love for Sarawak; for blessing us with abundance of resources, no natural disasters, peace and harmony amongst people of many races and religions.

2. For a peaceful, free and fair election, with good weather, good voter turnout. Pray for leaders who are capable, God-fearing, full of integrity and hate dishonest gain.

3. Pray the new Government will love and take care of the people, especially the poor, needy and marginalised.

4. For the people of Sarawak that they will be good and responsible citizens, law abiding and respectful of the government, will love one another and live in peace and harmony.

5. For revival in Sarawak, that there will be a GREAT SPIRITUAL AWAKENING amongst the churches to bring her people to know God in a greater measure, to be the salt and light and be a blessing to the community.

Free this Friday night (15 April 2011)? Come for overnight prayer, “Rock 4 Sarawak” starting 11:00pm all the way til dawn at Dream Center, Rooms 101 and 102. Map directions to DUMC Dream Center. (2 Jalan 13/1, Seksyen 13, 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor – 03 79587388 Twitter @DumcMy)

“Rock” here refers to:

1. Christ our Rock (and so, a call for God to visit Sarawak again)

2. A shaking movement (meaning we “rock” the doors of heaven for justice and righteousness in Sarawak, much like the widow of Luke 18)

3. A standing in solidarity as one people in worship and prayer.

Also, for General Elections (GE 13) which must be held by 2013 (at the latest).

Pray:

1. For Malaysians who are eligible to vote (21 years and above) will not miss the opportunity to exercise their right to vote. To check your status of eligibility, visit spr.gov.my website and enter your IC number.

2. The Election Commission will oversee the process with fairness and neutrality in accordance with the Federal Constitution.

3. Candidates will be of good character.

4. Divine intervention throughout the electoral process against all forms of corruption and evil plots that seek to  misinform the rakyat and manipulate the results.

5. Malaysians will exercise wisdom and discernment in voting for their representatives at state and federal levels.

Download this post as .txt file to forward to your friends via E-mailu

Last Friday before leaving office, I asked my colleague Michelle this question:

I have a feeling something big is going to happen.

1. Huge natural disaster

2. Big company announcement (CEO stepping down, big scandal, financial catastrophy)

3. Big celebrity announcement (the negative type lah)

And this morning (3-4 am, Tuesday) one of it happened….

(red – last hour, blue – happened today, yellow – this week)

The Red one is 700 km from Kuala Lumpur.

If the depth is around 20-30km deep on the epicenter, chances are it is huge. There are lots of activity at the 300-500km depth range, but those rarely affect life on the surface.

Bookmark this page http://earthquake.usgs.gov/… Stuff happens on Twitter first! (2009 post)

Let’s hope the events the remaining week are good lah.

Thought for the day:

We are young
We are strong
We’re not looking for where we belong

We’re not cool
We are free
And we’re running with blood on our knees

Video

I will be going on a short get-a-way Deepavali weekend (4-7 November) at Port Dickson. The other DUMC camp I attended was army style camp (with airconditioning!) and it was awsm. This one, the schedule is also awsm!

We’re gonna play a Life Game where we start at 15 years old, attend uni, get a job, get a life, and.. see how it pans out. Hmmm.. maybe I can kill my character early on and get the whole weekend off ;-) And have fun at the BEEEEAAACCCH-aaa…….

Have a nice Tuesday!

Our prime minister begins with a Koranic verse of wisdom. Notes that much consideration has been taken when drawing up this budget.

Healthy economy outlook to start things off!

7% GDP growth!!!! Wheee… Does that mean higher inflation??

Looks like the big news is the Hybrid cars being tax free… Very nice. Also the uber big MRT project tbc 2015, quite nice!! But average ticket price has got to be pumped up to rm 8.50 from the current rm 1.60… I was hoping for ERP gantry like Singapore to reduce traffic but it’s almost elections, so the gomen dun wanna piss off rakyat. And risk losing votes :p

Cheaper handbags, no tax on handphones, cheaper shampoo and shopping? The opposition are gonna have a meal at it tonight!!! Plus a 100 story tower we don’t need! Epic lolcats :)

Planning for 6% growth next year…. Zz…

One of the biggest thing is, the government seems to know how to make both men and women happy. Cheaper gadgets? How can you accuse “our dear leaders” of not taking care of our well-being? Sure, our average salaries and spending powers may be just a puny fraction of our neighbours Singapore or more developed places like Aussieland. But at least, we get cheap cars, cheap petrol, cheap handbags. I mean, what more can you ask for? :)

All in all, very populist moves. Most stuff “should” take effect next year. It’ll be nice to see the developments as  people figure out how they can exploit the latest multi-billion ringgit grants!

Lastly, our 100 storey tower of babel tbc 2020. Yes, we, can! MRT project will be cost-overrun again, no doubt about that. But it is long term, so I support that!

Malaysiakini iPhone app let’s you access all news for free! How amazing is that? Well, I’ll edit this post once I hear some commentary from mainstream media and their reactions… Nothing out of tue ordinary on first glance, it hits you through the little cracks along the fine prints…

Here we go again! More talk about IPTV, Bandwidth, Content, and delivering it to you.

Astro TV conducting IPTV trials [link]

Essentially it boils down to this:

1. The pipe

- TM’s fiber optics (UniFi) has bucket-loads of bandwidth. Technically you can stream 3D HD streams, fast lag-less internet, voice and it’ll still have enough to cover

- Maxis / TimeDotCom have the basic fiber infrastructure, but it is only a small fraction of people covered.

- Streamyx. Technically it can hold up a 12 mbit connection, if the copper is good, and the DSL exchange is nearby. It covers huge parts of Malaysia, but is poorly maintained in some areas. So technically, Streamyx can stream HD interactive content as well!

- Wireless is pretty much limited. 3G networks, can’t really hold up in crowded areas with multiple heavy downloaders. It’s just catching up with the laws of physics. WE have to give 4G Wimax time to prove itself but we gotta keep in mind that there’s only so many bits that can be piped in a hertz of bandwidth!

- The landing points (Point of Presence) war is long lost to the likes of  Singapore and Hong Kong. At it’s infancy, our government didn’t make the right plays to entice the big daddy Tier 1 internet providers (Level 3, Cogent, Teleglobe, NTT, etc). Hence today we have to lay fiber to Hong Kong or Singapore or Japan just to hook up to the US. Which, btw holds a huge chunk of our traffic needs.

2. The Content

- Astro wins hands down

- However, BitTorrent wins super double hands down if you wanna be a pirate, and copyright violator! I mean, with any internet connection, you can suck an episode of Top Gear (*not that I recommend doing), which is 700 MB, in

2 hours on Streamyx 1 mbit

30 minutes on Streamyx 4 mbit

25 minutes on Unifi 5 mbit

~ 2 hours on Digi 3G / Maxis 3G via your PHONE!

What pirates do is to line up their downloads, wait overnight and you’ll have a cache of movies and programmes to watch! From all over the world, uncensored, no commercials, and almost free!

3. The Cost

I’m not surprised that Astro has the guts and balls to charge people RM 20 extra for HD services (so few channels) on top of your regular subscription (avg. RM 100/mth) After all, they’re the only real player here. Rain fade? Who cares? What alternatives have you got?

In America, basic cable has at least 200 channels for a basic fee. An extra box for a second TV costs an extra $5. The vast range of HD programming is more competitively priced, certainly not such a premium.

Here in Malaysia, the 2nd box costs half your subscription! So if you have a RM 100 package, the 2nd box is RM 50!! Seems little, but over 3-5 years you are overpaying close to RM 1000!

As mentioned, BitTorrent is free. Get an ISP that don’t throttle your bandwidth (sadly, it’s Telekom because of their big network) and really really practice Net Neutrality (all bits are created equal, and should be treated equal!)

Conclusion

1. Malaysia needs more investment to build larger pipes to more locations (japan, usa).

2. Content providers should host their servers in Malaysia. I dream of the day when my 700MB movie downloads in 2 minutes flat because it is locally hosted.

3. We gotta stay ahead of the game, ya’ll! Educate, educate, educate.

Here’s a good read from Daily Finance on Net Neutrality and other discussions:

An epic and escalating war is now taking place over the next era of broadband content delivery. Some skirmishes are playing out in the public eye, but others — perhaps the most critical — are far removed from it. In fact, very few people know that the highly controversial efforts by Google and Verizon to hammer out their own proposal for a broadband policy framework — news of which broke only last month — started nearly two years ago. The outcome of this ever-hotter war will have a profound impact on the way consumers access information well into the future.

The ironic thing is I work for a company called Investor Central. So day in day out, I look at how companies are performing, what stocks to buy, what news affect what industry / sectors. We also talk about Property and alternative investments once a while.

Personally though, I think investing is not for me.

Case Study A – Buying a RM 300,000 property

In KL, that’ll get you a decent 3 bedroom 1000 sqft apartment.

Assuming 100% loan (cuz you need furnishing, renovation, misc expenses), we’re talking of ~RM 1600 monthly payment over 30 years. Add up the instalments and we’re talking ~RM 580,000.

Whenever you wanna buy/sell, there’s always lawyer fees, utility deposits, and 101 things that can (and will) go wrong. Not to mention your precious time spent dealing with agents, contractors, prospective buyers. Even if you pay me RM 500 an hour of my time to deal with these non-sense, I don’t think I’ll do it! It is just too much hassle.

Renting a similar apartment in KL area costs only RM 1,300. Over 5 years, that is about RM 80,000 over 5 years in rental. Don’t like the place due to bigger family, switching demographics, bad feng shui? No problem. Pack up & leave. No repercussion. I think the renting scheme is definitely more flexible, less worry-some.

Flexibility

It gives the flexibility to pursue my dreams… working with Apple or Google. Things like that. Some say that when you leave the country, why not rent it out? Well, I’ve seen that happen, and the managing of the whole fiasco can be quite troublesome. In the end, minus expenses, you garner next to nothing.

Case Study B – Car Purchase – RM 40,000

Over a 9 year period that is RM 570 a month. Plus fuel, toll, petrol, servicing we’re looking at RM 1,100 per month average.

How to survive?

Today’s message in church mentioned something about staying in Malaysia; don’t migrate. The same theme and chorus Ps. Dr. Daniel (P. diddy) has been preaching for years now. I wonder when will change happen. When will we see a revolution?

>> Paperplane Pursuit – Forward