Opinion: YES 4G lost 50k subscribers within 2 days, targets 14m subscribers

YTL Communications’s Yes 4G service HAD around 150,000 subscribers, Tan Sri Francis Yeoh, YTL’s managing director told The Wall Street Journal in a news report dated March 3, 2011 .

However it is believed that YTL Communications lost about 50,000 subscribers within two days as its Chief Executive Officer Wing K. Lee told TheStar that YES currently has 100,000 active users. The news reports on TheStar is dated March 5, 2011.

Malaysian Wireless is wondering what happened to those 50k YES4G subscribers as they disappeared like a ghost.

YES 4G, which had a terrible start when it launched the service in November 2010 as hours later the website went offline leaving newly registered customers in the dark. When the website/service was restored, customers was charged for the service and they were unable to view their usage.

The YES billing was finally issued last month and customers now get to enjoy a proper service. In the mean time, YTL Communication caused a stir in the local telecoms industry by claiming that it has a 700Mhz license for broadcasting.

However it was embarrassing when the Government cleared the air and said that the 700Mhz does not belong to YTL.

YTL Communications will spend RM2.5b in 5 years to build the Yes 4G network. According to YTL, the Yes 4G network is designed to support 14 million customers and will cover about 70 percent of the population in Malaysia. It is unknown when will YTL hit the target of 14 million subscribers.

14 million YES4G subscribers by 20xx?

“While Malaysia’s mobile market is saturated with a subscriber penetration rate of 117% in 2010, mobile broadband and 3G services still represent significant opportunities with wireless broadband having the potential to achieve up to 5.6 million subscribers by 2015,” according to Nitin Bhat, Partner & Senior Vice President of the Frost & Sullivan ICT Practice Asia Pacific in February 2010.

Assuming that we have 6 million wireless broadband subscribers in 2015, YTL Communication will have to take about 10 years from now(2011-2021) to get its 14 million subscribers. And that sounds like Telekom Malaysia(WiFi Hotspots), DiGi, Maxis, Celcom, P1 4G, Redtone plus at least 10 others ISPs in Malaysia will have to close down!

Some of these mobile operators have spent billions building their wireless broadband network and have better coverage plus years of experience compared to YTL.

In my opinion, YTL’s target of 14 million subscribers is a terrible joke and it sounds like the other wireless operators doesn’t exist in the market.

Even our existing mobile operators(Celcom, Maxis) have an average 10 million voice subscribers each and that includes quite a number of those who have more than 2 voice accounts(even I have 3 accounts!). Plus these operators have been there for over 10 years!

To me, it is kind of “greedy” to target 14 millions broadband subscribers when Malaysia’s population is only 28-29 million.

How, when does YTL plan to hit 14 million subscribers?

YTL Comm’s 100-150k YES subscribers

If you look at Celcom Axiata, it leads the wireless broadband market in Malaysia and has over 800k subscribers. The company adds an average less than 100k(about 50k-90k total in four months) mobile broadband subscribers every quarter.

If Celcom gets less than 100k mobile broadband subscribers within 4-months, how did YES 4G get 100k-150k ACTIVE subscribers within 3 months?

Amazing things happens when you say YES because YTL Comms was given a superb media coverage after launch and not to forget that customers wasn’t able to use the YES 4G service completely.

Never mind, let’s be more fair. Packet One(P1) currently has about 280,000 subscribers, including fixed-wireless broadband customers. Take note that P1 was launched in August 2008, that’s more than 24 months ago compared to YES 4G which launched 3 months ago.

Not to forget that the YES is just launching its fixed broadband modem!

So P1 gets 280,000 subscribers in 24-months while YES 4G get 100,000 active subscribers within 3 months? Sounds tricky.

Anyway, who cares!? Its not like the MCMC or the Government is going to investigate all these numbers or……. would they?

Related topics on MalaysianWireless:

me

yeah who cares with numbers. Even before they launched, TYL talked big time
Lagenda

P1 and YES using the same WIMAX wireless technology. P1 coverage map just list 1 tower for 1 km coverage only. So when YTL said YES will cover about 70 percent of the population in Malaysia this just in a dream only.

Intercomm1

So 1 tower for 1km only? Well it seems like you don’t understand the wireless technology…

http://malaysianwireless.com/ Kugan

And you sound like you work in YTL….

internetlover2:D

and u sound stupid and biased. an average technical telco person would know that a typical coverage of a base station depends on height and frequency. on 2.3G band on a typical 20m height site in a typical housing area, the effective coverage area is less than 1km so intercomm1 is right that 1 tower cant cover 1km. even if it could, the capacity of 1 site is not enough for 1km of people using the network.

not everyone that disagrees with your comment is a biased ytl lover. we talk facts

Lagenda

Ask P1. Look at P1 coverage map. Look for new area like Parit Raja. Don’t tell me P1 not understand the wireless technology…

Internet User

“And that sounds like Telekom Malaysia(WiFi Hotspots), DiGi, Maxis, Celcom, P1 4G, Redtone plus at least 10 others ISPs in Malaysia will have to close down!”

Subscriber doesnt mean the only only has one ISP service. These days it is common to have few internet services. I’m using Streamyx, Maxis and Yes at the same time.

And your statement is not entirely correct. My friends and I was able to use the service completely after signing up with Yes. I don’t think it affects all.

Your post is biased and vengeful. I wonder how you can write for a public blog like this without practicing parity.

http://malaysianwireless.com/ Kugan

Intercomm1 & Internet User ,

You don’t dare use your real name? You are both the same person anyway.

At least I dare use my name.

Ok, my post is probably “biased and vengeful”…but I’m not a coward like you.

Stop reading this site.

Tai Khai Eong.

Kenapa internet user takut nak berikan nama betul? Berani kerana benar.
ballz

fuck kugan if you say that batter you don’t bother to use any ISP product lah go back to kampung……

Hey..i got conned by them

TYL cheated me . I have yet to get my rebates ad advertised by them. Please stay away from this cheating company as they promise big but failed to deliver my rebates.
Wonder how long until mcmc can finish investigating my earlier report to them.

Guest

I think you conned yourself! Its YTL not TYL! Perhaps haha you should search for the right company next time…

Sanfeadesai

I think I can answer where YES4G got that many ‘user’ in this short amount of time.
If you notice, YTL is offering this “Education Partner Program” and 6 institution has sign up for it. YES4G actually auto-enrolls those students into their program.(at least that’s true for my institution) It maybe embarrassing to say but consider each of these 6 institution has 15-20k student.(Taken from each uni’s website) That’s about 90k to 120k users added to YES4G userbase.

So you asking does yes4g have that many names in their database? I say YES but most in a form of inactive student accounts

Czqchai

ya, it say it got 100000 active cust., not 150000 cust., the 50k is student???

Kacangputeh

Why nobody FB like this post? Scamboy work so hard to bring up this factful post and nobody like it as sign of gratitude? So many readers here are biased!

Pima Pima

Kacangputeh = Scamboy = Kukugan

http://malaysianwireless.com/ Kugan

Pima Pima= YTL?

You wanna make more statements here, use your real name. Be a coward and get banned.

Beware of YTL

1. Ytl said that got rebate if use 3gb…until now my rebates are still being kept by yes….baarrger if don’t wan to give rebate why u advertise and trick people ?
2. Ytl said they got 700mhz spectrum bla..bla..bla…in the end …govt said no such thing as ytl got the spectrum. WTF ? This YTL think they are bigger than the govt ka ?
3. Relying on inactive student accounts that got the yes account for free is sooo cheapskate. Baarrrger…your product is soo uncompetitive per data quantity until you want to manipulate your subscriber base to cheat people to sign up.
Allan

Anyway, since the first day i already know that YTL’s YES is just a BullShittt. Full with empty promises since 2 years ago and until now also still try to bullshittt the public.
fido

Summary of Yes previous failures more important than their attempts to make 4G cheaper through their valuepack? Dont la too biase…obvious aldy
http://outdatedpenanguncle.blogspot.com/ ahsiang

I will never trust this company because even the website can never being access. What does it tell if a basic website cannot function properly? YTL, pls go back to do your construction work la.
Tai Khai Eong

Seronok membaca tulisan anda yang penuh dengan fakta. Nampaknya, syarikat ini, cakap besar saja.

Mar201107

Kugan

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