Tag Archives: Singapore

Malaysia is getting ready to fly to another height?

Malaysia used to be the richest and most developed country in the region.However,since last 10 years,the economy in Malaysia was lacking of encouragements and so growing quite slow.As the current prime minister in Malaysia,Najib wants to make some revolutions-to unite all nations in the country and create more opportunities to all people by investing some great amount into a few potential industries and markets.Some labs of the government has been studying in the topics and we could see a part of research results through the official statement.

The one I’m interested in is Greater Kuala Lumpur Plan because I may keep living in KL for a number of years.The development of KL will affect my life here.Of course,I believe that will bring to me some opportunities too.

The proposed MRT plan could reduce the expense of travelling.It may also ease the congestions in city areas and so improve the efficiency of  transport and logistics industry.

The proposed high speed train service linking Kuala Lumpur and Singapore(may extend to other major cities in the region in long term) will attract more visitors and provide more connections between the two financial cities,effectively promoting the complementarity of resources.

The proposed investment on broadband services and IT will eliminate the digital gap to catch the trends in the world.Moreover,it could speed up the delivery system in either public or private sector to show a much transparent,fair and efficient financial environment.

In fact,more than 100 proposed points are advised by the intelligent units.The formal presentation of the whole project will be announced by PM in the coming weeks.For me,I just hope that what they talk could be run thoroughly.

New trains for KTMB

Hearing of buying new trains from Transport Department as well as KTM Berhad,finally we could see the true face of the new trains.

New KTM train The new train is made by Hyundai Rotem  with Mitsubishi design and will be used on Kuala Lumpur-Ipoh route of ETS(Express Train Service) initially.The designed max. speed of this train is 160km/hour,however,it will only be running at 140km/hour maximum in the current route,spending 1 hour and 55 minutes for the single trip.

The new train is a new hope for a lot of people.At least we now know that KTM is doing something improving their services.I just wonder know when they want to increase more trains for existing commuter services and when the ETS will be extended to Penang/Singapore.

I think for all I mentioned,I still need to wait for longer time.

Broadband in Singapore

When I suffer the slow international link issues,I hear a lot of good news from other countries.In Singapore,the very neighbour country of Malaysia,it has estimated the Next Generation Network on the board and planned to release it on April 2010.Starhub won the contract and will be in charge of this new service.

The tariff for the new network has open to public.

Wholesale prices are set at SGD 21 per month for a 100 Mbps residential connection and SGD 121 for 1 Gbps, while non-residential premises, such as offices and schools, will have a wholesale price of SGD 75 for 100 Mbps and SGD 860 for 1 Gbps.

In order to clearly get the comparisons with Malaysian Broadband,I made a graph here:

Streamyx VS NGN

We could find that we subscribe Streamyx 4Mbps packages where the speed is 25 times lower than Singapore NGN-100Mbps plan,but we have to pay the price 3 times higher than Singaporean one.

Just unfair!

HSPA+ in Singapore

Starhub Singapore mobile operator-Starhub will launch 21Mbps HSPA+ network by the end of April.Following that schedule,it is the second operator who uses HSPA+ technology in Asia and Australian operator Telstra is the first one where it launched the service in last month.

I have to differentiate HSPDA,HSPA and HSPA+ clearly here.Maxis and Celcom,who are the two largest mobile broadband operators in Malaysia,are using HSDPA technology(if not wrongly informed) that works up to 14Mbit/s in the downlink and only 384Kbit/s in the uplink.However,the Malaysian latest mobile broadband operator-Digi is using HSPA which improves the end-user experience by having peak data rates up to 14 Mbit/s in the downlink and 5.8 Mbit/s in the uplink.Thus,we could say that Digi has the advantages to beat with two other large competitors in the markets.

Starhub’s HSPA+,in the meanwhile,also calls as Evolved HSPA.It even could provide up to 42 Mbit/s on the downlink and 22 Mbit/s on the uplink.The speed is so amazing that it’s able to fight with a few of wired broadband now.It brings the average broadband speed in Singapore into another high and pushes the whole industry moving towards a better position.

HSBB in Malaysia is a desirable project,however I feel there is too few motivations,perhaps competitions.I wish these mobile operators could join the battle to give consumers more options and encourage the sector growing much healthier than what we see now.Singapore is a very good example and I think Malaysia could learn a lot from there.

I wonder when I could enjoy HSPA+ or equivalent service in Malaysia.Frankly speaking,I want it to be tomorrow!

Mini Budget in Malaysia

The deputy Prime Minister and finance minister Dato’ Najib announced a mini budget in this afternoon totally amounted RM60 billion(USD16.1 billion) for 2009 and 2010 to boost the local economy.

4 key areas are touched in the budget:

mini budget

However,after reviewing the whole details of the budget,I feel that it will not help the economy as much as we hope.The budget seems to be quite rough and thus,I think the result will be just-so-so for each field.

Besides,for individuals,it’s not involving much either.After all,people in the country will not entitle any benefits with cash and how could we see more spending on consumption within the country?

The size of this mini budget is not enough as it’s RM30billion annually,much less than the similar one for 2009 in Singapore which is up to RM41 billion(SGD20.5 billion).It shows that the management is still thinking to follow a conservative policy in this very special time.Well,R-E-G-R-E-T is the only word I’d say now.

Good luck,Malaysia!

More details in TheStar

Singapore Trip(3)

The third day of the trip was the busiest day.We spent out whole afternoon in Sentosa Island and then went to Night Safari.

First scene in Sentosa Island colourful and creative fountain

We took Sentosa Express in Vivocity.It costs us S$3 per person.The ticket has included the admission fee to visit the island and can be used for whole day.Just a few minutes,we arrived at the last station-Beach Station.We bought Sentosa Choice Package in the ticket office there and started our trip in the island.

My girl with a rat? The merlion in Sentosa Island

We visited The Merlion,Images of Singapore,Butterfly Park and Insect Kingdom and Sentosa 4D Magix.

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