Here’s the reply from TM, responding to my blog post “Test your Streamyx with M-Lab“.
I am not going to comment on this, but I hope you will comment (Please, no offensive comments as that could put me in trouble).
Response from TM:
In view of the recent launch of M-Lab or Management Lab, an online tool that allows researchers and consumers to measure Internet performance, by Google Inc, Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) would like to take the opportunity to further explain to its users on its Fair Usage Policy to assist in understanding the test results.
TM’s Fair Usage Policy (FUP) is posted on its website at streamyx.com.my for the benefit of all its subscribers. In essence, the policy aims to ensure that all Streamyx customers enjoy the best broadband service at the most competitive price. It is important to understand that broadband is a shared service and the activities of some users can have an effect on the services available to other users.
In an ideal situation, all users will get an equal percentage of the available bandwidth. Unfortunately, some users may use a greater share of the bandwidth at the expense of the other users. As a result, other users have to put up with diminished experience, more so during Internet peak usage times.
“Therefore, in order to maintain the quality of our broadband services, we introduced FUP. Other ISPs in the region and worldwide adopt similar policy to ensure its customers benefit from excellent broadband service. On TM’s part, The FUP is designed to minimise the subsequent loss of performance by ensuring everyone uses only their fair share of bandwidth.
In implementing FUP, TM’s monitors the performance of our network and prioritizes traffic accordingly to protect the quality of service for the majority of our customers when they use the service, while at the same time, still allowing the extremely heavy users to continue to send and receive files with certain restrictions. This mainly applies to applications that provide peering services. This will ensure fair allocation of bandwidth to all Streamyx customers,” said Jeremy Kung, Vice President of TM Consumer.
While the main purpose of the FUP is to avoid unfair disruption of services due to excessive peer-to-peer (P2P) usage during peak Internet usage times, TM is not against the use of P2P. However, TM wishes to educate its customer on responsible usage of the bandwidth.
“At TM, we always do our best to provide our customers with the fastest connection that their specific conditions will allow. We wish to stress that actual connection speeds would depend on various other external factors. The different parts of the Internet network do contribute to the customer’s overall online experience, such as the customer’s computer performance, modem, indoor telephone cabling, local loop, Point-of-Presence (PoP), Internet traffic, international connectivity, etc,” added Jeremy.
TM’s future plans
As the leading ISP in the country, TM will continue its efforts to improve Internet services in several aspects namely :
Technical : The migration of the old equipment to new equipment, i.e. from a digital legacy system to a full IP that will help provide better surfing experience for users
On the customer front: More focus on improving our customer support services to help customer resolve their problems via the first call through our First Call Resolution (FCR) programme
Improving our channel management: TM will ensure that customers are better educated at point of sales so that they are able to use the services without problems and understand simple resolution techniques and protection from security threats that may impact user experience
Better offerings: To offer more customized packages to suit the segment needs and make the service offering simpler to understand and use, in addition to offering better products and services over the Internet
Quality of Service: TM is committed to spend 3% of our annual revenue on improving quality of service and increasing our QoS audits.
TM also wishes to highlight that it is extensively connected to all corners of the globe with one of the highest international bandwidth capacity in the Asean region through its involvement in 8 major submarine cable consortiums.
TM is also leading a consortium made up of 17 major international telecommunications providers to build the first high-bandwidth optical fibre submarine cable system linking the South East Asia region directly to the United States of America (USA). The construction of the 20,000km long Asia America Gateway (AAG) cable system is underway and when completed, the cable system will connect 10 locations in 8 countries across the Asia Pacific region, namely Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, Guam, Hawaii with the US West Coast. The AAG is expected to begin carrying commercial traffic by July 2009.
“We are undertaking these initiatives to ensure better surfing experience for our customers and to meet their diverse needs and priorities, ” concluded Jeremy.
