It is a strange morning to wake up and to read the following two news:
– Lack Of telecom infrastructure drives WiMAX adoption in AP; and
– WiMAX Will Not Dominate in the Short-Term, Analysts Say.

Arent analysts fun? One say “Yes yes, WiMAX will grow in AP” and the other say “No no, WiMAX wont happened until 2010”. If you are confused, fear not, I will add to the confusion and say “Both are right!” :-)

There are several business case for Mobile WiMAX. Broadly speaking, (1) ADSL/Cable replacement and (2) personal mobile broadband.

When most people think of broadband in Asia Pacific, they generally look at Japan, Korea & Singapore and then forgot that for the rest of the developing countries in Asia Pacific, most if not all are struggling with broadband pentration. Therefore, as an ADSL/Cable replacement or competitor, Mobile WiMAX is a pretty good alternative.

But when you look at the more advance countries where ADSL is cheap and in abundance, there is a trend that users are using internet where-ever they are, on the train, on bus etc. Japan definitely leads the thrend here and in this personal mobile broadband game, the short time is likely to be win by the mobile alternatives like HSPA, Ev-Do etc.

However, most of the mobile operator are still voice centric – most of the 3G operators are on R5 which is still a voice/data hybrid network, leaning towards voice more. Therefore, as personal mobile broadband subscriptions grows, it is not certain the existing mobile technology is going to support a large number of subscribers since it was never planned as such. So while the short term personal mobile broadband looks bad for Mobile WiMAX, the long term is a different story*.

So I guess it depends which market you are after and in which country. This is why I am not so gungho on Mobile WiMAX in countries like Japan, Korea, Singapore but spending most of my time in Malaysia and Indonesia instead.

*My personal take however is that mobile technology is likely going to evolve and embrace OFDMA. It is going to be more WiMAX-like which will compete with the pure Mobile WiMAX we see today.

A couple of news caught my attention today. With the impeding Microsoft IE 7 support of IDN, the industry has renewed its interest in IDN. Already, CircleID is buzzing with articles on IDNs in the last couple of weeks and various commenters noted that IDN registrations is expecting to go up. Look no further, it is going up. My visit to CNNIC last month confirmed they have increased the Chinese Domain Names registration by a significant portion to 300k registrations. At a prenium price (20 USD a name), Chinese Domain Names is generating as much revenue for CNNIC as the English domain names (a lot more but a lot cheaper too).

But what catch my attention is this wonder article written by Geoff Hutson on Internationalization of Internet. It is definitely a great summary covering various events surrounding IDNs.

Just two note:

1. On DNAME, I wasnt a big fan of using DNAME. I think ICANN is misguided that the DNS infrastructure cannot support too many TLDs and that using DNAME adds a level of complexity than it needs to be.

A label is a label, does not matter if it is on the 2nd level or the top level. If we dont use DNAME on 2nd level, I dont see why we need to use DNAME on the top level.

But I wont stand in the way for ICANN to experiment with DNAME IDN TLDs. Any little step forward is a step forward.

2. The article didnt mention RFC 4690 : Review and Recommendations for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). It covers a great deal of the technical complexity of IDNs, what we know works and some of the potential technical pitfalls we are concerned with in the existing system.

I wrote to Patrik and John a few weeks ago and here is what I said:

I agreed with issues raised in the doc, many of them are already
well-known before the original set of IDN RFCs was publish.

However, I think it would make sense for the system to implement a bit
longer to see whether the problem mentioned is real or just a
theortical possibility. It might also hurt the IDN progress if IETF
undertakes a review at this moment in time, as more likely then not,
implementors will then wait for the completion of the review before
further implementation gets done.

Other the minor disagreement with the timing, I applaud the work done
on RFC 4960 :-)

Patrik replied to say they have taken the timing into consideration so I left it as that.

3 years ago, I learnt a small lesson on the investment principle of Buy and Forget. One of things I learnt from Warren Buffet is to consider every stocks you buy or sell as if it is the last transaction you do in the next 10 years. (Go sailing for 10 years before you return, or something like that).

Of course, I dont have that kind of patient. In fact, I used to twiddle my portfolio every few weeks (if not every day). But then I keep remember this lesson and decided to do a little experiment a year ago. On 19th Nov 2005, I made a few adjustment to my portfolio and I didnt login to my E*Trade account for exactly one year.

Here is how I did:

Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago, a friend (who requested to rename nameless) forward me a website called M2Z. It was already covered by GigaOM, and Tom Evslin.

It was a application for 20Mhz of spectrum on the 2.1Ghz (2155-2175Mhz), nation-wide to roll out a free high speed broadband wireless access in United State (see their application). Before you write this off as another wannabe, this is brain child of Milo Medin, founder of @Home in 1995, and John Muleta, the former head of FCC’s Wireless Telecommunication Bureau. The backers include the top names on Sandhill Road, Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers, Charles River Ventures and Redpoint Ventures.

Their goal is to provide 512kbps wireless broadband to 33% of the US population by 3rd year, 66% in the 5th year and 95% by the 10th year. Looks like they are giving ClearWire the competition they need.

But an email conversation with the unnamed friend recently remind me about this proposal as well as some of the questions I had.

1. Why 2.1Ghz? I can understand that 2.3Ghz and 2.5Ghz is practically gone in United State but still, 2.1Ghz is reserved for 3G expansion for many countries. I think they are going for a uphill battle.

2. 20Mhz, is probably just sufficient for a decent wireless broadband roll out. Some would even argue we need 40Mhz to be safe, using 10Mhz channels on n=3 configuration with 1 channel on reserved.

3. I suppose 512kbps is probably the reasonable speed they can do on 5Mhz channel (given they are asking for only 20Mhz). But could you possibility imaging we still using 512kbps 10 year from now? But then again, having broadband is better than no broadband at all for many parts of US so maybe they have a case.

Anyway, good luck to M2Z. I hope they got what they asked for (or better, more than what they ask :-)

ps: I am willing to bet they have a higher chance after Bush leave office. :-)

Had a long coffee chat with a former colleague from IDA yesterday. It was nice to know whats happening with the team as well the usual corporate gossips. It is even nicer to confirm one of the work I started is indeed going places, not just to the Cabinet (and PM was there :-) but also COPS (Committee of PS) as well as the ultra-elite Pyramid Club¹. And as expected the 20min timeslot given was not enough and as usual, a lively discussion :-)

Hearing these stories makes me wonder if I should have left IDA in the first place. I missed all the fun!

Just before meeting this colleague of mine, I was meeting with an investment banker whom I recently know as we are working together on a project. So we were just trading histories and I blurt out “I spent 3 years in IDA…but I think it is one year too long”. He gave me a suprised look and said “You dont like IDA?”.

No, I absolutely love IDA. In fact, leaving IDA is one of the hardest thing I had to do in my career. “There is no better place for a technologist like me to work in Singapore. Tracking technology trends is a hobby and doing it as a living is even better. Not only that, it gives me opportunities using technology to make a difference to the society (hopefully for the better).” still remains true. Making it harder was the fact I had nothing to fall back to. Essentially, I am resigning without knowing what I am going to do next. (It has to do with a promise of staying back until my replacement is found but no longer than that)

Yet now that I taken that step into the unknown, I realized I should have done so earlier. Like the story of “Who moved my cheese”, the journey of the seeking is exhilarant, the savour of the new cheese even more.

Looking back, it was the same experience when I resigned as CTO of my previous company. I had an extremely well-paid senior management position. I left without anything to fall back and after several months, I landed in IDA, with a paycut no less. But I was having so much fun in IDA that I told myself, “Damn, I should had done so an year earlier”. Not that I wasnt having fun either in my previous job.

Sincerely, I enjoyed all my jobs. I would not have taken a job that I know I dont enjoyed in the first place. Each of them is challenging, pushing me to higher and most of all the experience is valuable. But as fun as it is, as challenging as any work is, once is fun, twice is okay, thrice is boring and if remains the same, become monotonous². Eventually I will find myself dragging myself to work.

Thats when I know it is time for me to leave.

The only problem is I always waited one year too long to leave.

So no more. This is a promise that I pick up the courage and be true to myself. No more dragging myself to work and feeling life sucked out of me. When I know it is time to leave and if it is the time for me to leave, I shall leave, as soon as possible.

No more one more year.

¹ You wont find info about the Pyramid Club anywhere on Net. It is an exclusive invite-only club that comprises of the whos and whos in Singapore from both public and private sector. I had a mentor who was once a club member.

² Don’t get me wrong, there are many many people who likes predictable work. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If anything else, I am the odd ball. Thats just me.

Two days ago, the Indonesian regulator issued an interesting whitepaper: Penataan Spektrum Frekuensi Radio Layanan Akses Pita Lebar Berbasis Nirkabel (Broadband Wireless Access/BWA). You can download the PDF here but it is all in Bahasa Indonesia.

The whitepaper clarify a lot of confusion over the spectrum plan in Indonesia (from 1.5Ghz to 10.5Ghz) as well as the next step for different blocks as well as the timeline. More important, it also describe the procedure for the pending 2.3Ghz allocation in Feb 2007 (See Section 5, Seleksi Pita Frekuensi BWA 2.3 GHz). Particularly of interest is this paragraph

Kriteria penyelenggara yang diperbolehkan mengikuti seleksi, dibagi atas 3 (tiga) kategori, yaitu KATEGORI A, KATEGORI B dan KATEGORI C,
yaitu:

Kategori A, penyelenggara jaringan telekomunikasi yang memiliki
infrastruktur telekomunikasi serta telah memiliki penomoran pelanggan dan fasilitas interkoneksi, yaitu …

Salah satu prasyarat utama untuk pemenang lelang pada kategori A adalah dikenakan kewajiban untuk memberikan fasilitas esensial jaringan seperti tower maupun fasilitas esensial lainnya kepada pemenang seleksi kategori B dan kategori C.

I am not well versed in Bahasa Indonesia but basically this is what it says. 2.3Ghz will be allocate in 3 category. Category A is basically refers to the incumbent operators. (Category B is other existing licensee and Category are new entrants). And get this, the winner of Category A (ie incumbent) is mandated to share towers, facilities etc with Category B and C winners!

Not only it even out the allocation so that it is not dominated by the incumbent, it basically comes with infrastructure sharing :-)

Since I blog about FON two week, I got some enquires about whether I could get some for them too. Sadly, as mentioned, they dont shipped to Singapore yet. So a few days ago, I decided to email my friends at FON. Well, they replied and send me a box of 20 FON routers. It just arrived today (thanks :-)

For those who dont know, FON allows you to share your broadband via wireless in exchange for a cut of the revenue (‘bill’ model) or allow you to use others broaband for free (‘linus’ model).

I counted that after giving them to friends and the handful who asked for it, I probably still have 10 left over. So I am giving them away for free* in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. If you are interested, drop me an email at james@seng.sg.

* Condition: You pick it up at a place of my choosing. Bloggers will have priority.

Update 14th Nov: I just notice the FON price went up to 30USD. But yes, I am still giving it away since they gave me for free. I still have 5 sets.

“Half of the teens in Singapore aged 15 to 19 are on the Internet, blogging or podcasting, and this figure is set to grow. This means there are 120,000 or so blogs by these youngster online.” Chua Hian Hou reported. (via Good Morning Yesterday)

Article also on Bangkok Post

Just read on Crunch Gear that Samsung is showing off their WiBRO Mobile Phone.

But the one which everyone talking about (and has being waiting for since June) is the one below: Samsung SPH-P9000.

It is really more of a PDA with a fold-out keyboard. Beside the interesting form-factor, it support EV-DO as well as WiBRO* (Tech Spec).

Samsung must be working very hard to make sure they are in the running with the Sprint US$2B WiMAX project. I have no complains..it is great for the industry to see someone finally driving the CPE side of WiMAX :-)

* These days, when Samsung talks about WiBRO, it is not certain if they are referring to Korea WiBRO or the (going to be) harmonized WiBRO with Mobile WiMAX.

A few days ago, IDA called for bids to operate the centralized number portability database for Singapore.

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) issued the Request for Proposal on the Centralised Number Portability Database Solution (RFP) to invite interested ICT companies to submit proposals for the provision and operation of the Centralised Number Portability Database in Singapore. The RFP arose from IDA’s 2 August 2006 announcement to implement True Number Portability in Singapore from fourth quarter of 2007.

Wasn’t Singapore one of the first country in Asia to have number portability? Well, as I noted before: “What we have in Singapore now is “Call Forwarding” and we are trying to move to “Onward Routing” or “All Call Query”. Both will give us true number portability (ie, the Caller ID will match your number)”

Incidently, a friend called me up a few weeks ago as he was assigned by his company to look at this thing called “number port that government is calling for bid”.

Friend: Hey, you know anything about number portability?

Me: Erm, yea. Kind of…what can I do to help?

Friend: So hur, who is most likely to win?

Me: Well, Neustar has put a lot of effort in this area for a while so they are in a good position whereas I am not aware of any Telecordia activities.

Friend: So should my company partner Neustar?

Me: Sure why not? If you can convience them to partner, good for you!

Friend: But but..why would they partner with us?

Me: Thats for you to figure out right?

Friend: Shouldnt government make it such that no foreign companies can bid for it?

Me: Huh? Why?

Friend: So they have a reason to partner with us.

Me: … (WTF!)

My dear friend, Singapore government no longer works in that way…not anymore in the Telecom sector.