WiFi and WiMAX in Penang

Penangities will soon enjoy the so called broadband speed in their home. For me, I am not really get excited. WiMAX for sure is not free if you are talking about mobile WiMAX (802.16e) unless you are using the so called fixed WiMAX (802.16d) which is going to obsolete and replaced by mobile WiMAX. The deployment cost may be high and thus P1 will charge the price on that. So WiMAX is not free. You need to pay for Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) or else you need to sign up the 2 years contract. So if Penangities are going to get free WiMAX, I would like to know how much that the state government pays for P1. Then, if it is free, do we really need this?

“This effort is 100% private sector-driven with nearly no or minimal cost put in by the state government. However, there are no rights to exclusivity and all qualified and recognised industry players are welcome in the interest of promoting competition,” Lim said at the launch in Komtar yesterday.

I support the idea of FreeWiFi movement in Penang. But nothing is free for sure. Nearly no cost in it? Please specify that how much the state government needs to pay. Where is REDtone-Hotgate going to put all the APs in Penang. If in the building, who pay the rents or the electricity? Then, if REDtone-Hotgate is going to earn from advertisement, how are they going to do that? Whenever you access to the FreeWiFi in Penang, your browser will go to portal page full with the advertisement specially prepared by REDtone-Hotgate. So is this fair? I am not going to satisfy with this? Why should we give this to only REDtone-Hotgate?

“The connection speed offered is at an average of 10 Mbps, depending on the specification of the notebooks, the speed can vary,” Wei said

Kidding, average of 10Mbps. If I get 1Mbps per user, I would be happy for that. What is the backhaul speed? If your AP is connected to 1Mbps ADSL, then the download speed for each user maybe less than 1Mbps. Ok, maybe he claimed the connection speed, not the download speed.