On my way back to Singapore for CommunicAsia next week, I decided to drop by Jakarta, staying at Marriott again.

…Okay, that is oxymoron ;-) Anyway, I am here for a day before pop’ing back to Singapore tomorrow.

Incidently, if you notice the increase of the use of photos on the blog lately, well, say hi to my Nokia N80 thanks to the 3 megapixel camera. So far, I love the little device, except a few minor complains like (1) the phone crash (2) the browser crash (3) the apps keep running out of memory (4) connecting to WLAN may fail and crash, and end up sucking up all your battery.

And oh, I found out the phone has a new firmware upgrade which suppose to fix (some of) these problem. So happily I went to a Nokia Care center last weekend, waited an hour for my queue number only to be told the firmware upgrade will take FOUR (4) hours. What a great customer service Nokia is providing!

Other then these, it is a pretty niffy device. I love it!

If my weekend trip is crazy, my trip to Hong Kong is worst. I got notice to fly to Hong Kong with less then 24 hours notice, then a delay in a meeting yesterday caused me to missed my flight and there is no more flight to Hong Kong. So I end up buying a red-eye ticket to Macau, then took the first ferry to Hong Kong. Crazy but here I am at Shangri-la Kowloon.

Anyway, I am fuming right now! And as we all know, this is the best time to blog and probably getting into legal trouble.

So I am here in Shangri-la for the Wimax conference. One of the speaker is Mr. Chan Kin Hung, SVP of Starhub who is giving a talk on wimax from a mobile operator perspective. In summary: “There is no business case for Wimax” and he repeat that through out his 30mins talk as he made comparison to HSDPA.

Now, I don’t disagree with what his analysis. In fact, I find it very well thoughtout and presented and I agree, it is indeed difficult for Starhub to make a business case for Wimax in Singapore.

What I am so angry about is that if Starhub) don’t see a business case for Wimax, then WTF do they bid (and won) for 2.5Ghz auction when it could be better used by other smaller operators? In fact, Mr. Chan himself concluded that Wimax is more suitable for alternative operators.

Something is obviously wrong when spectrum (and something as valuable as 2.5Ghz wimax spectrum) goes to someone who dont want to use it in the way it was intended and deny others who does.

When Pak John told me they have over hundreds of wifi base station on a single roof top in Indonesia, I don’t believe them at all. Until I see this…

And repeat that picture on every inch of the roof. Many microwave links of course but most surprising, most of them are 2.4Ghz base stations (microtik, senao, canopy are popular). Even with directional antennas, how they cope with the interference is amazing…

Just checked into JW Marriott Jakarta. Yep, the hotel that was bombed in 2003. It has since being renovated and it is a very nice hotel. Security are tied, cars are searched by 5 security personal, metal detectors at doors, and bags are checked before I step into the main door. I was stopped by the security when i was trying to take a picture of the beautiful entrance so all got is this picture of the keycard ^_^

This is another exploratory trip for me. First time in Jakarta, second time in Indonesia. Before I come over, I expected Jarkata to be a typical developing country like Vietnam or Cambodia. Downtown Jarkata took me totally by surprise, very clean, very neat, and very developed. Hotels (and I am talking about five/six star hotels like Four Seasons, Grand Hyatt, etc), Shopping malls, Starbucks, Coffee beans, Carrefour, you name it, you find it here. In fact, I dont see it very much different from Orchard Road.

Totally surprised and I already love the place.

Guess whats the event after Internet2?

Okay, Cruise Missile is definitely out of my league :)

Anyway, this Internet2 trip for me is all about routing: How network A connect to network B when there are multiple paths, one shorter latency and another bigger pipe and unfortunately not both at the same time, and how applications deal with it. Most just give up and say MPLS which is okay but in a longer term, how do we build a network that can route packets based on different application requirements.

Of course, lets not ignore the politics of it. For example, SingAREN has multiple possible paths to APAN-JP, one direct 155mbps, another indirect 622mbps via TEIN2-SG POP, and yet another 622mbps to Taiwan then 622mbps to 622mbps to APAN-JP. Logically, the preference route would be direct, then 622mbps via TEIN2 and lastly via Taiwan. Yet somehow, we end up preferring Taiwan as a secondary route over TEIN2-SG POP.

20+ hrs but finally arrived safely in Washington. All I can say is I really love SQ22, the direct non-stop flight from Singapore to New York. By the way, here are some breath taking photos I took while we fly over the north pole.

I also love attending a conference where the organizer actually provide wireless all the way to your room :-)

Packing my stuff right now for a long trip to attend the Internet2 meeting in Virginia. Haven’t being back to US for a while and I dont really look forward to the jetlag :-(

Oh yea, a friend told me I should also dropped by Digital City Expo since I will be there.

I wrote this couple of days ago but didnt publish because I am concerned about the sensitivity. But heck, I think I think too much…

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I went up to KL yesterday to catch up some friend and found out PIKOM PC Fair start today at KLCC. PIKOM is the Computer Association of Malaysia and they held one of the largest PC Fair (something like COMDEX) in Malaysia yearly. This year, they decided to hold their PC Fair in 25 venue (across multiple states) at the same time!

Anyway, I went over this morning only to be stopped by the guards :P Luckily, made a phone call to a friend in PIKOM and whee, I am in ;-)

The guest of honour is Y.B. Dato’ Sri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, the Minister for Energy, Water and Communications. Dr. Lim is a seasoned politician and has been the Minister for Primary Industry for the last 20 years. Most people would associate rubber and palm oil with Malaysia and you know whose credit it goes to :-)

This is the first time I hear Dr. Lim speaks and I really enjoyed it! He is an extremely funny and entertaining speaker while at the same time able to bring across his points. Like “When I first took over the Ministry, Malaysia broadband is 0.4%. 2 years now, we are at 4%, 10 fold increase …wah..all can sit back relax play golf huh?”. The room burst into laughter when he added “4% my foot!” Or like how he challenges the reporters to “stop talking about the crooked bridge and talks about THIS! (broadband in Malaysia…or the lack of it)”

Funny aside, it is also quite clear he meant business: That he wants broadband to grow, ICT industy to grow, more investments and definitely more liberalization (“you think i dunno who is the toll keeper?” :-) It is also quite clear he is all for industry self-regulation but if they dont play nice, he wont hesitate to step in.

And the catch phrase for the day: “Come dream with me”
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This is why I love coming to Japan :-)

This is why I (or anyone) shouldn’t go to Joi Ito‘s lab, ever :-(

And before I forgot, this is the latest FOMA P901iTV – watch TV on the phone :-)

Beside the little hiccup of calling Martin Varsavsky‘s room only to get his tired and very annoyed wife hanging up on me, I think the trip went well. (Luckily, I found Martin wandering at the lounge trying to look for me so we managed to hook up :-)

Thanks to all my friends who spare their valuable time with me this trip.