Tag Archives: internet

Business, News

CelcomDigi & Time Join Forces to Expand Home Fiber Broadband Access

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CelcomDigi Berhad (CelcomDigi) and Time dotCom (Time) have announced a strategic partnership aimed at broadening home fibre broadband choices across Malaysia. In this collaboration, CelcomDigi will utilize Time’s fibre broadband infrastructure to extend home fibre services to more Malaysians, with a particular focus on residents of condominiums and apartments.

This partnership promises numerous advantages for CelcomDigi subscribers, including high-speed broadband connections of up to 1Gbps. Time’s symmetric downlink and uplink speeds ensure high upload rates. Furthermore, the collaboration streamlines fibre installation, making it a faster and more cost-efficient process. These efforts align with Malaysia’s digital ambitions.

CelcomDigi and Time dotCom collaborate to boost fibre accessibility for Malaysians

Albern Murty, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of CelcomDigi, expressed excitement about the partnership’s potential. He sees it as a crucial step to expand connectivity, providing Malaysians with consistent and seamless internet experiences at home and beyond. He also hinted at more initiatives arising from this collaboration that will further benefit Malaysians.

Datuk Zainal Amanshah, Executive Director of Time, highlighted their commitment to delivering high-speed internet to as many Malaysians as possible. They’ve made their gig-speed network accessible to internet service providers for some time and are pleased to support CelcomDigi in delivering fast and reliable internet connectivity.

This collaboration represents another step in Malaysia’s efforts to enhance internet accessibility and affordability. In the past, Digi, before its merger with Celcom, had entered into similar agreements with Time to expand its fibre footprint. Additionally, Digi expanded its reach by signing agreements with TM’s HSBB network and TNB’s Allo.

While CelcomDigi and its competitors, TM and Maxis, have begun revising their fibre pricing, this partnership signifies a significant move towards bridging the digital divide and improving internet accessibility for all Malaysians.

News

Digi Makes Travelling More Affordable with Expanded Roaming Passes from MYR25

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Digi Telecommunications, one of Malaysia’s largest telcos is making it easier for their subscribers to travel – and more affordable. In light of relaxing pandemic travel restrictions worldwide, subscribers will also be able to get back to their travel plans without the shock of a roaming bill. Digi is expanding its roaming passes to help subscribers have added peace of mind while travelling.

Both Digi Postpaid and Digi Prepaid subscribers can now take advantage of expanded roaming passes from just MYR25. There are now options for 3 days and a week. The Asia Pass is available for MYR25 for 3 days in 20 countries. This pass entitles subscribers to 2GB of data and 30 minutes of voice calls from Asian countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Brunei. Digi is also offering an added 2GB data quota to travellers heading to Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. This gives you a total of 4GB of data to use during your 3-day trip.

Digi Roaming Asia Pass

If you have a longer trip planned, you can also opt for Digi’s 7-day Roaming Pass for MYR50. The pass gives you the same quota but this time for over 46 countries including Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Digi says it plans to expand the countries included in this plan in the future. It’s worth noting that these roaming passes are for use in a single country when activated. So, you may want to put off activating it until you reach your final destination.

Digi Postpaid customers will be able to Roam Like Home with the Roam Like Home Freedom add-on. This add-on is available with Digi Postpaid 90 and above for free while others can activate it with a payment. Prices for this add-on start at MYR15 monthly. The Roam Like Home add-on has been enhanced to offer 10GB of data, 60 minutes of calls and 60 minutes of IDD voice call. It will be refreshed every month.

Digi’s Roam like Home Freedom add-on, the Asia Roaming Pass and World Traveller Roaming Pass are available on the MyDigi App.

Business, Lifestyle, Mobile

Digi’s Juara Internet Malaysiaku Offers Free Phones, Extra Internet, and Rebates in Conjunction with National Day and Malaysia Day 

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It is August, for Malaysia that means it is the month leading to the National Day and Malaysia Day. It means we get two extra holidays for the month of August and September. But it is also a celebration of what of Malaysia and all that is Malaysian. 

Digi, one of the biggest homegrown telcos celebrates the month of August and September the only way it knows how; giving more good deals. In anticipation of National Day and Malaysia Day, Digi launches the Juara Internet Malaysiaku promotion. Of course, since it is also a promotion for Malaysia Day, it lasts through August and September 2022.  

Starting from today new and existing Digi customers are entitled to free devices when they sign up for a new internet plan. If you sign up for a new Digi Postpaid Family Unlimited plan, you get a new Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite for free. With the Pakej PowerJimat postpaid plans, you are entitled to a number of free Samsung, Redmi, vivo, and OPPO smartphones.  

If you are thinking of getting a new home internet plan from Digi, there is no better time than now to get it. New customers to the Digi Fibre 190 plan and above are entitled to rebates totalling up to MYR 240. Current Digi customers are entitled to up to MYR 60 a month in savings when they pair their postpaid plans to select Digi Fibre plans.  

Postpaid customers are entitled to enjoy 10GB more data for 12 months if you switch or upgrade to Digi Postpaid 40, 60, and 90 plans. If you go for the 120 or 150 plans, you get 50% more quota than what is offered on the brochure. Customers who are on Digi Postpaid 90 programs and above also get to enjoy up to MYR 15 of additional rebate every month for the next 12 months. You are also entitled to a Gadget SIM free for two months so that you can share your internet plans with your other devices via a second line for the promotion period. A Gadget SIM usually sets you back MYR 10 a month. Postpaid customers are also entitled to an MYR 200 GadgetFreedom Plus voucher within the MyDigi app. The voucher can be used to purchase anything from Digi’s official online store on Shopee Mall.  

Of course, prepaid customers are not fogotten. New customers to the Prepaid NEXT 35, NEXT 45, Raja Kombo 35, and Raja Kombo 45 plans gets 65GB of additional high-speed video quota for 30 days so that they can enjoy contents from Netflix, Viu, Astro Go, and YouTube without worrying about running out of data. Loyalty pays here, current prepaid customers get an additional 130GB of high-speed streaming quota with any 30-day Internet plan purchase via MyDigi Box of Surprise. Digi’s Unlimited Video Pass is also now extended to all Digi Prepaid customers. From MYR 5 onward you get to enjoy unlimited streaming from Netflix, Astro GO, Viu, Dailymotion, or Unifi PlayTV for three days.  

The Juara Internet Malaysiaku promotion starts today onward (1st of August 2022) until the 30th September 2022. You can find out or sign up for these attractive offers by visiting any Digi Store, Digi Store Expess, Digi authorised dealer, or their website.  

News

Cloudflare Error Took Out A Large Part of the Internet – Us too!

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If you were trying to get to a number of websites or use some of your apps earlier and couldn’t, it was likely because of an outage at Cloudflare. A large number of companies use the service to help improve their user experience and load times. The company has already acknowledged the issue and is currently working to resolve the root cause and restore the internet.

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Screenshot: Cloudflare Twitter Announcement

According to their service status website, a P0 issue – essentially an urgent issue requiring all hands on deck – occurred at 6.34 a.m. UTC (2.34 p.m. UTC+8/Malaysian Time). The issue caused connectivity disruptions in the Cloudflare network across a large number of regions. During this time, you were likely to see a page with Error 500 on any website using the service – including ours. The disruption also affected Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 DNS service and a number of apps and services including Fitbit, NordVPN, Discord and even Shopify.

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Screenshot: Error 500 on Bluehost.com

Cloudflare has announced that they have already deployed a fix for the issue at 7.20 a.m. UTC (2.20 p.m. Malaysian Time/UTC+8). For now, it looks like the issue has been resolved and the internet is back in one piece again. It is worth noting that this incident isn’t the first incident. Cloudflare has experienced similar outages in July and August 2020. The former resulted in Discord going down for a little bit while the latter saw a similar result to today’s outage.

News

Maxis Introduces Family Plan with Unlimited Data from MYR299 a month

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Data is getting more affordable thanks to plans from providers such as Maxis. The company unveiled a brand new package which makes being connected even more affordable with prices starting at MYR299. The new package takes their current MaxisONE packages and supercharges it with unlimited data and even fibre broadband.

The new Maxis Family plan bundles fibre internet or a Home 4G WiFi connection and unlimited data for up to four lines. The four lines consist of a single principal line with three supplementary. The base package which will cost you MYR299 bundles a 30Mbps fibre broadband connection with the four Maxis mobile lines. However, subscribers will be able to opt for higher connection speeds at a premium. The 100Mbps connection will cost an additional MYR40 while the 300Mbps will cost an additional MYR60, 500Mbps an additional MYR130 and the 800Mbps an additional MYR210. These charges are incurred monthly. If additional mobile lines are required, they are available for MYR48 a month.

However, to sweeten the deal, Maxis is offering an appealing slew of devices for subscribers through their Zerolution plans. Subscribers are able to get a 65-inch Samsung 4K UHD television for as low as MYR1 a month for 24 months. Of course, this will be on the highest plan which includes the 800Mbps connection at MYR509. All four lines under the new Family Plan will also be able to get devices under the Zerolution programme with instalments starting at MYR19 a month each.

The new plan comes in light of the increased data consumption of Malaysians. As noted by Arjun Varma, Head of Maxis Consumer, “Our insights have shown that families in Malaysia are using more data and there is a demand for a seamless digital experience for children, spouses and even the elderly living at home. With the Maxis Family Plan, we want each one of them to have unlimited high-speed data at a very affordable value per line along with high-speed broadband and also access to latest smartphones, tablets and smart TVs.”

Lifestyle, News

Celcom MAX – All-in-One Plan to MAXimise Your Life

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You have seen the memes; you know it is true; internet and interconnectivity IS life. With the world going into lockdown and isolation because of the pandemic, the importance of having a decent internet connection and being constantly connected are even more emphasised. While the trying times also tested our resilience, our technology gets tested too. For our sanity and productivity, our internet connection became our lifeline.

Internet and data connectivity in Malaysia can be a little bit of a headache though. At our time of need, this kind of headache is exactly what we do not need. The solution is a one stop shop for everything data and internet. The solution, according to Celcom, is Celcom’s MAX all-in-one plan.

Source: Celcom

Technically, Celcom MAX is very similar to Maxis’ ONE plan. It is Celcom’s one-stop-shop for a home internet and mobile data plan for the family. For as little as MYR 179, you are subscribing to Celcom’s 100Mbps home fibre plan alongsidef a Celcom MEGA postpaid mobile plan (MYR 80). That is MYR 21 in savings every month technically.

The MAX plan also will include a free AX router for homes. That also means you get WiFi 6 connectivity out of the box if you subscribe to a Celcom MAX plan. You can also opt for a pair (2 units) of Mesh Routers for up to MYR 25/month for 24months though if you need the coverage. You are also eligible for 6 months of iflix or iQiyi or DimSum subscription for free when you subscribe to the Celcom MAX plan.

Source: Celcom

You can save even more when you buy your electronics with the Celcom MAX plan. You can get your hands on a Sharp 60-inch Android TV for only MYR 2,400 (MYR 100 x 24 months), an MYR 2,599 discount over the retail price of MYR 4,999. You can even get your hands on a Microsoft Surface Pro X 256GB LTE for MYR 5,800 (MYR 242 x 24 months), down from MYR 6,438 retail price.

The Celcom MAX plan is available today onward. You can choose between 100Mbps, 300Mbps and 500Mbps home fibre plans for MYR 179, MYR 199, and MYR 259 between the three plans. The first 100 customers to sign up for any of the Celcom MAX plan is eligible for a waiver if their first month’s bill. For more information on the Celcom MAX plan, you can head over to their website.

Mobile, News

Free 1GB For Now, Free 1GB for Later, Free 1GB For the Entire Day!

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The whole COVID-19 situation has made 2020 a little bit of a write off. There are at least a few things that made 2020 look a little better, some positivity. We now realise that we can be productive at home, we save a little bit more money and become a little more healthy by not eating out, prices of petrol goes down, we get our own little 1m bubble of personal space, and best of all – free data.

By now, everyone would have known that you can claim 1GB of free data daily from the major operators like Maxis, Digi, Celcom, UMobile, and Unifi Mobile. There are limitations to that though. The 1GB of data only applies from 8.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. in the evening.

1GB of data may not sound like much at first. Start using them for just emails and sharing documents and even get on a messenger app though and you might be pleasantly surprised. Without watching Netflix, YouTube, stream at high-quality with Spotify, or downloading games, 1GB is way more than enough. 8.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. is also the usual working time for the average Malaysian. So the time limit made plenty of sense. At least that was the case until June 2020.

From the 1st of July, 2020l; which was yesterday, all the way until 31st December 2020, users of the major telecommunication operators get to enjoy the 1GB of free data daily for 24 hours instead of a restricted time of the day. That also means you get about 30GB of free data in the week.

If your home is equipped with its own internet, you would find that 30GB is a little too much to spend. We wonder how some people can have 60GB of data and still not have enough. Still, we like free things and so we will gladly take it with open arms. For more information regarding this new policy, you can head over to your telco’s websites. No, it is not too late to switch over telco too; we did not mention which to which.

Mobile, News

Celcom Xpax Truly Unlimited with Ultra Hour!

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Having an unlimited amount of something is great. Bottomless drinks in restaurants, for example, are great for us. It means we will never go thirsty for the period you sit in that restaurant. It also means value-for-money. Everyone likes to get value-for-money things. They are like a bargain for whatever.

Celcom has always been at the forefront of that for some time. Then again, they have been quite aggressive in their product offerings. Celcom’s most recent prepaid plan was a real value-for-money product. You get for what you need, technically, for not too exorbitant amount of money.

Now they come with Celcom Xpax Truly Unlimited prepaid plan. Technically it is a monthly plan still that you pay for with your prepaid credits. They also renew automatically if you have enough credits within your SIM card. You do not need that much though. You only need MYR 12 every week. That is as low as it gets for the current prepaid unlimited plan almost anywhere.

Source: Celcom

For MYR 12 a week, you get 3MBps access to the internet and other services endlessly. For MYR 35 a month, you get a whole month of unlimited internet access at the same speed cap. The weekly plan gives you 1GB of hotspot data too for free. The monthly plan gives you 3GB of hotspot data to play with. On top of that you can of course add hotspot data plans for MYR 1 (1GB valid for one day) and MYR 3 (5GB valid for 3 days).

Should you ever need more 3MBps though you still can opt for Celcom’s Xpax Ultra Hour Passes. It gives you uncapped data speeds at a limited time. Still, for at least one hour, you have access to unlimited internet use. You can download all the Netflix shows you want for your commute the next day or later starting with MYR 1 (1 hour) and all the way to MYR 8 (24 hours).

Capped data speeds not your thing? Need, full speed internet all the time? They have those too, with daily passes from MYR 2 (capped at 2GB) all the way to monthly passes at MYR 30 (capped at 5GB). These plans also come with unlimited YouTube streams from 1 a.m. to 7 a.m.

Celcom’s Xpax Truly Unlimited plan is available today onward of course. You can find out more on the Truly Unlimited Plan on their website.

Mobile, News

Hotlink Goes Unlimited From MYR 3/day!

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Our lives today are driven by data. We consume data for our daily lives, and we give out data to gain access to more data. Our data consumption rate and requirement increase everyday too and that is why every other telco in the world wants to move toward 5G speeds and latency.

The amount of data being consumed today has led some local telco in Malaysia to come up with unlimited data plans at capped speeds. This started with UMobile and their prepaid plans. Other started picking up the unlimited data packages to offer to their consumers or potential consumers at capped data speeds. Celcom has been offering differing unlimited data plans to suit different users at different times.

Source: Maxis

The only major telco in Malaysia that has not adopted the unlimited data plan for its prepaid users is Maxis. Until now that is. Maxis Hotlink Prepaid users can finally enjoy unlimited data at reasonable prices.

The largest private telco in Malaysia is offering unlimited data for Hotlink users at speeds capped to 3 Mbps. Of course, you can push the cap a little higher to 6 Mbps should you want to pay a little more.

While 3 Mbps or 6 Mbps may not sound like much, it is fast enough to stream Netflix at 1080p should you get a good signal. YouTube’s buffer screen would be at a minimal to non-existent too at 3 Mbps. If you do think that you need more speed than the capped 3 Mbps or 6 Mbps though you have the option to pay for uncapped speed quotas that will last up to 7 days with your current plans.

Source: Maxis

There are some small caveats to the Hotlink Prepaid Unlimited plans though. We do suggest that you go through their FAQ page to ensure that this is the plan for you and to find out a little bit more about the plan.

Within the FAQ you will find that the “Unlimited” plan is not truly unlimited. You get up to 6MBps of data speeds to work with. That has been dusted, cleared, and covered earlier. Beyond that though, this 6MBps or 3MBps will only be until you used up 50GB in that month. That is if you go for the monthly plan. If you go for a weekly plan, they limit you to 15GB of data usage and 5GB for daily passes. This is accordance to Fair Usage Policy (FUP), according to Maxis.

After you hit the FUP ceiling, you will be knocked back down to Maxis’ free basic internet plan at 512kbps, which is still enough for basic internet browsing in our experience. This plan is only limited to smartphones by the way. If you want to tether or use your smartphone as a hotspot device, you would have to purchase additional data plans.

If you are wondering if you can stream Netflix at Full HD with the limited data speeds, we assure you that you can watch movies at up to Full HD resolution with the 6MBps plan. Technically, Netflix only requires about 5MBps for an HD and Full HD stream. If you want to go for Ultra HD streams, you need about 25MBps of data speeds, but you will not get Ultra HD streams on most smartphone devices anyway.

Source: Maxis

Still, if you want high speed data for your videos on smartphones, Hotlink also has the new Prepaid Video data plan with up to 10GB of data just for YouTube, Viu, iflix, Astro Go, and Tonton. Still, going on the Unlimited Plan (monthly plan) we mentioned earlier gives you a free premium access to Viu for 30 days with Maxis TV, all you have to do is have and active plan and go on the Maxis app to claim the access.

Maxis Hotlink’s Unlimited plan is readily available now for all Hotlink users. Of course, terms and conditions apply. We do suggest you read through the FAQ page to find out what you are getting yourselves into as well. Then again, we suggest that you should read as much as possible about a product before buying it.

Business, Computers, Editorial

The Art of Enabling the Disabled

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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI and ML) technologies have come a long way since its first inception. Who would have thought that we would have a working model of actual computer-based assistants that can do things like manage our schedules? Who would have thought that we could even use these assistants to manage our homes? These things can even be used to diagnose cancer patients, something impossible without doctors even five years ago.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is at the forefront of AI and ML technology. As one of the world’s largest technology innovators, they would naturally be at an advantage to feed enough data to the technology and accelerate their development. Because they are also one of the largest technology firms any man has ever seen, they are also at an advantage in placing AI and ML in places and applications we may never have imagined.

Linguistics is one segment that has benefitted greatly from technologies today. Linguistics, if you think about it is also one of the most complex things that us humans can create and understand. The context of it and interpretation can be affected by plenty of things too. Linguistics is affected by area, culture, community, heritage, and even lineage.

For example, there are differences between French spoken in France and Canada. There are even subtle differences between French spoken in France and Monaco, or even Switzerland. The most common language of all, English has differences even in spelling and context in Britain, the Americas, and even Australia. English spoken today is also a distinct form of the language that was spoken 50 years ago.

The Pollexy Project

The progression of technology in linguistics have progressed through years and years of feeding all these data into it. That has allowed us to communicate with global communities with more ease than peeling an orange. AWS has taken it a little further than that though. They have gone beyond spoken or written languages. Through something called AWS DeepLens, they have developed translation algorithms to sign languages.

While that technology might sound like it is as simple as gesture controls, it is plenty more than that. Yes, it is technically gesture control and recognition. But it is way larger and more complex than just a solution for end-point devices. The trick is to teach the native algorithm to recognise all the available sign words and even alphabets. The AWS DeepLens Community projects so far has learnt to recognise most of the alphabets in the American Sign Language.

But technology also goes beyond just recognising alphabets to understanding proper words with the algorithm in Amazon Alexa. It is not just about communicating with your friends anymore. It is about using the platform as a home assistant tool, a customer service tool, a command center, and user defined PC experience that mimics voice control and command for us. Instead of using voice though, its all in the gestures.

Making Amazon Alexa respond to Sign Language using AI

The tool they use is called Amazon Transcribe. It works just like any transcribe apps you can find in the market. It supports up to 31 languages currently with more being added by time. It even supports ASL as a component to create text from sign language.

Simple communication is just the beginning for the technology though. AI and ML still has a long way to go even in the medical field. Just like the human race, the technology gets better everyday though. If you really think about it, the technology is not that new in the first place. We have embarked on the journey of having machine built and defined assistants since we started developing computers to help us with simple and complex mathematical problems.

It is just that simple mathematical problem solver has become something much bigger today. Who would have thought that we would let computers fly a commercial airplane? Who would have thought that cars can drive themselves today? Who would have thought that we could hire a private translator without spending any money or any time? You just have to look into your pocket.