Using a 20MHz band on the 2.3Ghz spectrum, the live demo achieved a combined speed of 130Mbps on two ZTE(Qualcomm powered) USB devices connected to the PC.

(Click images below to enlarge)

More on this later, in the mean time check out the official press release from P1 below.

PORT DICKSON, Tuesday, 5 April 2011- Packet One Networks Malaysia Sdn Bhd (“P1”), Malaysia’s first and leading 4G broadband provider, hosted the world’s first WIMAX-Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (LTE TDD) live demonstration to members of the media here today. The demonstration by ZTE Corporation, P1’s 4G network partner as well as leading telecommunications equipment and network solutions provider showcased for the first time; WiMAX and LTE technologies supported on the same platform and the ease of transitioning from WiMAX to the LTE network. Both technologies were demonstrated on the 2.3GHz spectrum. On the peak downlink throughput in a cell, the demo reached an impressive 130Mbps on a 20MHz band.

“With the perpetual data tsunami that the world is gradually experiencing, we’re excited that our customers will in the near future be able to embrace it by leveraging on the power of WiMAX and LTE technologies,” P1 CEO Michael Lai said.

Lai added, “WiMAX has enabled P1 to be a 4G leader. Our next step is to be the first to harness the co-existence between WiMAX and LTE so that we can offer our customers the best of both worlds. P1’s 4G journey over the last two and a half years is a valuable asset to the 4G technology evolution roadmap. Ultimately, our customers’ best interest is at the top of our minds. We simply want the best for them (customers). P1’s next step is combining the power of WiMAX and LTE that will further enrich lives by providing truly mobile and personal internet.”

Explaining the timeframe for WiMAX and LTE going live in Malaysia, Lai said various factors have to be assessed to determine a roll out date, including the readiness of the LTE eco-system including end-user devices. “Without compatible and affordable devices, consumers will not be able to fully leverage on the power a LTE network.”

P1 pioneered 4G in Malaysia since 2008 and has been providing instant, fast and value for money wireless broadband to customers for the past two and a half years. Its brand proposition is the best value wireless option for a rich media experience. Lai said P1’s customers download an average of 10GB per month and the bulk of that is video and music downloads.

P1 currently covers 45 per cent of the Malaysian population and aims to increase that to 65 per cent by end 2012.

The company would be capturing a bigger share of the wireless broadband segment from WiMAX-embedded notebooks, it said.

Currently, 20 per cent of its total subscribers are from the wireless broadband segment, it said in its research note. The research house said the segment would gain popularity as major PC retail outlets have begin to stock up the models.

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While P1 has been doing a few network maintenance recently(this & this), there a still a number of P1 WiMAX users out there who are not happy with the speed & experience, especially at night.

A video by P1 WiMAX, made in the year 2009. The conclusion of the video- P1 WiMAX is no different. Watch it after the jump!

Note: The video above belongs to P1, and it was never published on any media.

Sources claim that SK Telecom is very close into buying a small part of Packet One, one of the top WiMAX operator in the world owned by Green Packet.

It is believed that the sale may raise up to US$100m but I don’t think it will be enough for P1 to expand into East Malaysia and Singapore.

“So far, a few parties have approached P1. Talks are still in the early stages. Nothing is finalised yet. It may take months before anything concrete happens,”

Money from the share sale would come in handy for P1′s aggressive plans to expand its network coverage in the country.

P1 has invested close to RM600 million since it launched its broadband services about two years ago. It had some 139,000 subscribers last year.

Full Story

• Managing the Network Monitoring Centre Service Level Agreements (SLA), Incident as well as Problem Management. Making Sure the Network Monitoring Centre (NMC) Service Level Agreements (SLA) are Met within the Agreed Key Performance Indicator (KPI).

• Managing TT Severity as well as Coordinating Escalation to Configuration Owners as Well as Management Team.

• Driving Service Restoration MTTR, Making Sure ALL TT are within the Established SLA/KPI and Making Sure the Submission of IR is done for TT Closure.

The reason I’m blogging about this is not to promote the job, but to tell you that P1 is taking the necessary steps since the incidents that took place on the network during last week. At least 4 other network related positions are available here.

I still believe that they are facing the same problem caused by the claimed “UPGRADE” and customers are still experiencing slow speed and frequent disconnections.

To tell you the truth, I’m personally surprised that this is happening to Packet One as its parent company, Green Packet actually consults a number of service provider out there in terms of WiMAX deployment and offers a number of platform and solution related to network such as the one in the presentation below:

My point is, Green Packet is a “a developer and integrator of solutions and value added services (VAS) for the telecommunications sector” but it cannot even provide enough resources or was unable to handle the network issues of its own WiMAX company.

As time flies, I noticed a dramatic change in P1 as more ex-employees from Maxis, Celcom and DiGi joins the company. Plus I have not heard from its media friendly corporate comm team since I wrote the post “P1 Network outage again, no Internet for customers“.

P1, you need to resolve your network problem as soon as possible.

It happened again, P1 suffered serious network problem during the last weekend. The previous major outage took place last October 2009.

This time, P1 blames it on a planned network upgrade(3 months in advance) which they did not take any necessary steps to inform their precious customers. When the network went down between 6-7 March 2010, it took P1 3 days to send out this email:

Dear Mr xxx,

In the month of March, P1 has embarked upon a massive network upgrading exercise that will deliver better performance and connectivity to our rapidly increasing subscriber base. This exercise was planned over 3 months in advance with almost all eventualities and scenarios being taken into consideration to minimise any inconvenience to you.

Unfortunately, around midnight on 6 March, 2010 our technical team encountered technical difficulties during the network upgrade exercise that resulted in service being interrupted to high density areas of the P1 W1MAX network.Despite our careful planning and risk management, it is very unfortunate that what triggered the service interruption was something that is almost impossible to predict.

Immediately, upon the detection of this interruption, we deployed our rapid response technical team to restore service within our target time of 2 – 4 hours. However, due to the severity of the technical issue, service restoration took much longer than expected. As a result, you were unable to get connected to the Internet. Subsequently, service was fully restored at around 0700hrs on
7 March, 2010.

To our subscribers, we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience that we have caused due to this service interruption. With immediate effect, we will waive any service charges during the period when the P1 W1MAX service was interrupted. In this case we will waive one day of service charges.

WiMAX is a very new technology and the P1 W1MAX is a relatively new network but you can be rest assured that we have amongst the best minds and talents in the world working on our network and other aspects of the business.

To ensure our network architecture and services are the best that we can provide to you, we will continuously deploy the latest network hardware and software to ensure that we are able to deliver the 4G technology promise consistently and affordably.

The service interruption has given our technical team some very valuable data to allow us to take extra precautions and reduce the risk of service interruptions if not eliminate it altogether.

We appreciate your understanding and patience and once again, we truly deeply regret the inconvenience that we have caused.

If you have further questions or require more detail on this please do not hesitate to contact the P1 Customer CareLine at 1300-800-888.

Sincerely,

Your friends at P1

Source

Dear friends at P1, if this is a planned upgrade(3 months in advance), you should inform customers. And since you didn’t, you betrayed your customers who suffered from your planned actions. On top of that, why on earth the smart people at P1 planned a network upgrade during weekend when Internet traffic is high? There is no common sense. Network upgrade should be done at night between 1am-8am during weekdays when Internet traffic is at minimum.

Michael Lai, the CEO of P1 used to say that Internet is a necessity, just like water and electricity to the home, I guess the network team in P1 does not share the same idea and mission of their CEO and the company.

Although P1 decided to waive a one day service chargers, it does not make a difference. It was a day without proper Internet service for P1 customers and this “experience” is good enough for users to terminate their subscription. I am hoping for the second time that P1 would learn something out of this. Customer experience is key to everything, how do you feel when you turn on your computer and tried accessing the Internet but then P1 is not working? You get a disappointed customer. Imagine that this could have happened to thousands of P1 customers out there.

If you are subscribed to P1, I urged you to re-consider using the service. As P1 themself says it in the email above, they are new and without experience. Maybe Malaysians should give them a year or two before seriously thinking of replacing their current broadband service with WiMAX.