More organizations are now looking to have a strong presence in the metaverse. In Malaysia, telco giant Maxis is also looking into the future of living, working, playing, and learning in the metaverse. Will their metaverse initiative, however, fulfil their consumers’ experience given its track record for disruptions and network issues, to mention a few?

Powered by its transformation from a mobile telecommunications provider into a connectivity and digital solutions specialist that offers solutions for every segment and is supported by its industry-leading 4G network, fiber coverage, and best-in-class 5G innovation, RKRM is the reinforcement and deepening of Maxis’ Always Be Ahead brand purpose.

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To build the metaverse environment, stringent computation and communication requirements are necessary. Minimum guarantees in terms of latency, data rates, and processing resources are required to deliver an immersive user experience and real-time interactions and to support millions of concurrent users and content creators. Simply put, 5G will be a key ingredient of the metaverse, something which Maxis has yet to explain when they will exactly deploy.

The issues with telcos

As of now, for a full-fledged metaverse implementation, the current computing and communications infrastructure is not yet ready – especially in Malaysia – at least for now. Here’s why.

Malaysians are well familiar with this because they deal with slow network speeds or complete lack of coverage virtually daily. The underground railroad, rural areas, and even the indoor city center do not all have basic service, despite the fact that mobile operators have stated that Malaysia will have a high percentage of 4G LTE coverage.

Metaverse requires a smooth and always available experience for customers. However, Malaysians have been facing with repeated network disruptions. Just recently, Maxis’ users have reportedly been experiencing problems with mobile data and phone calls since early morning due to a network outage.

In response to numerous customer concerns posted on social media, Maxis advised putting airplane mode on and off to attempt reconnecting again if there was no signal. This brings up another issue, customer service.

Telcos have enabled chat features as part of customer service. Yet, some telco consumers don’t get to interact with a human and instead find up communicating with a chatbot that lacks information. In fact, these chatbots frequently returned the same answer that users weren’t asking for.

There is nothing wrong with Maxis entering the metaverse, but they need to be more consistent in the services they promote and offer to their customers. Their network appears to be inconsistent, yet that is the fundamental service they should be excelling at.

Maxis’ approach to an immersive metaverse experience

Maxis’ decision to enter the metaverse is a big call; for their customers to experience it, they would need to upgrade their infrastructure.

It is important to note that the metaverse requires new user equipment that has never been utilized on mobile networks and pervasive high-bandwidth, low-latency communications. The people building the metaverse depend on telecom corporations to play a crucial role in the ecosystem to get the metaverse to function at scale.

Maxis in the metaverse, though still in its early phases, strives to offer a distinctive destination for an immersive experience with highly interesting, pertinent, and rewarding interactions. Through the platform, Maxis provides a glimpse into the potential of what the future may look like from a variety of perspectives, including gaming, enterprise solutions showcase, essential services, luring talent, immersive education, and building an ecosystem of partnerships with multi-industry verticals.

According to Maxis Chief Sales and Service Officer Patrick Er, the metaverse reflects the company’s brand purpose and core value of What’s Possible because it opens people’s minds to the possibilities of what they can do in the future of digital technology to continue providing the best possible customer service.

“This is just the beginning of an exciting digital journey, and we look forward to more to come on this platform, so keep watching this space!” said Patrick.

Maxis has presented “Maxis Centre Decentraland”, the first virtual telco store in Malaysia, to kick off this exploring phase. It is a connected retail experience on the metaverse that provides customers with specific services. Users can browse and purchase Maxis’ goods and services using cutting-edge 3D technology, explore and gain inspiration for home improvements using Maxis’ home appliances powered by Maxis Fibre, and even buy collector NFTs made in partnership with Malaysian artists.

The performance of Maxis’ metaverse is, of course, still too early to predict, but let’s hope it lives up to expectations.

The post Can Maxis’ metaverse experience live up to customers’ expectations? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Malaysian telco companies have shown improvement in the latest OpenSignal report. However, most of the improvements are only in the delivery of 4G as the nation is still one of the slowest countries in Southeast Asia to deploy the 5G network.

According to OpenSignal’s Mobile Network Experience Report, while 5G still remains a key focus, the state of the network delivery is still relatively unknown as the country awaits confirmation if the remaining telcos will take up 5G services from Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB). Maxis and U Mobile have already declined the network while Celcom has started testing 5G with some customers.

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It also remains to be seen if the merger of Celcom and Digi will have any impact on them taking up DNB’s offer. For now, as the new deadline is seemingly the end of September, it remains to be seen what exactly will happen should the telcos not go on with the offer from DNB. Previously, the government had announced that they would offer the network to other providers, including foreign ones if the local telcos continue to reject the offer.

For now, 4G will have to be the main network in the country. And as such, the OpenSignal reports highlight the strengths of the local telcos in delivering 4G services. Yes, Malaysian telcos are leading in 4G while telcos around the world compete for offering the best 5G services.

There was a time when even getting 4G connectivity was a challenge in some parts of Malaysia. In fact, it still can be challenging to get the network in some areas in the country.

Nevertheless, Digi users can boast to have the fastest average download speeds in Malaysia, with 20.5 Mbps. While Digi’s score was 1.3 Mbps (6.8%) higher than second-placed Maxis, the average gap between Digi and other national operators is much more significant — 65.1% to 137.7%.

Next, Celcom has a firm grip on the 4G coverage experience with an impressive score of 9.2 on a 10-point scale, ahead of Digi and Maxis’ identical scores of 8.6 points. Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators. Given that 4G has been around for more than a decade, it only makes sense that Celcom should be dominating the experience.

(Source – OpenSignal)

Interestingly, when it comes to video experience, Maxis winds up sharing the top spot, this time with Digi. Malaysian users on Digi and Maxis enjoyed the best available quality of experience while streaming video over mobile connections, with statistically tied scores of 43.2-43.3 points (on a 100-point scale). U Mobile and Unifi were close behind, scoring 42.6 and 41.4, respectively. The Video Experience scores of these four operators place in the Fair category (40-55).

Maxis is still a winner though as it offers the best multiplayer mobile gaming experience while Unifi also wins the Core Consistent Quality award.

It seems while the rest of the developing countries compete to offer the best in 5G services, the Malaysian telco companies are still trying to make a mark in 4G. While there is nothing wrong with this, the reality is, if they don’t start offering 5G services soon, the country is going to be left behind.

While some may argue that the difference between 5G and 4G coverage and offerings may not be very different, the reality is, 5G enables a lot more use cases than 4G. And neighboring countries in the ASEAN region that have begun offering 5G services are already making the most of the network.

Malaysian telcos’ 4G services may have improved but offering 5G services should be the end game.

The post As 5G deployment expands globally, Malaysian telcos rule 4G appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

A couple of weeks ago, Apple announced its most powerful iPads ever at the yearly Apple Event held at its headquarters in Cupertino, California. First announced a decade ago, the iPad is now in its eighth generation, and while some are decrying the lack of new features, the performance upgrades of the latest Apple tablets might fulfil the needs of business users.

For one thing, while the new generation of full-size iPads is making use of the Apple A12 Bionic processor, the newest iPad Air is powered by the Apple A14 Bionic chip. The A14 is so small that the dimensions are measured in atoms, according to Tim Millet, vice president of platform architecture at Apple.

There are over 11.8 billion transistors packed within the minute processor, granting the A14 a massive 40% increase in performance metrics compared to previous chips, including better power efficiency and enhanced overall performance. Users who prefer the ease and mobility of an iPad instead of a laptop for work use, should be blown away by the unprecedented performance upgrade of this device.

The reveal of the new iPad Air via a special video from Apple Park in Cupertino, California. Source: AFP

Millet pointed out that the new chip will also boost the iPad Air’s graphic performance by 30% over prior models, adding graphical muscle for editors and designers who utilize the iPad for editing high-resolution videos on the go, including 4K videos.

The A14 processor is so powerful that it can perform 11 trillion operations per second and comes packed with an advanced image signal processor, but it also sports the most advanced chip design Apple has ever attempted, featuring a neural engine with 16-core architecture and machine learning accelerators.

The neural engine for machine learning will also feature in the 8th generation iPad for the first time ever. Improvements have also been made to the Apple Pencil as part of the iPad OS 14 update, so now users can use Scribble to input handwritten information into any field, in any app on the tablet using the Pencil. Ideal for note-taking

The Apple Pencil locks cleanly to the side of the device via magnetic connection, and the iPad comes in five colors with either 64GB or 256GB of inbuilt memory. The silver, space grey, and sky blue colors look like they would fit nicely into a professional setting, while the rose gold and green shades would likely complement a creative designer quite smartly.

*This piece was updated on October 7, 2020

The post Does the latest iPad have something for business? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The Chinese carrier’s chairman has confirmed the two firms are in talks.

Compatibility issues between the iPhone and China Mobile’s 3G network mean that currently Apple’s handsets only work on the much slower 2G service.

The problem could be resolved with the launch of the next iPhone, rumoured to happen this summer, and when China adopts the 4G standard, analysts say.

China Mobile is the country’s biggest mobile phone network, and in terms of users the world’s largest, with more than 660 million customers.

Even though the iPhone is not yet in China Mobile’s official product line-up, about 15 million of the company’s customers are thought to be iPhone users already, having bought the phone through different channels.

China Mobile’s market share is about 67% – a lot more than its two rivals China Unicom and China Telecom – but it has been slipping steadily in the past few years.

Officially offering the iPhone to its subscribers could help China Mobile to get back the consumers it has lost to other carriers.

China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua mentioned the ongoing discussions between the two firms at a shareholders meeting in Beijing.

“We’ve been actively talking to Apple on how we can cooperate,” he said.

“I can’t give you too many details, but I’d like to repeat that both sides do hope to boost our cooperation.”

Via BBC News.

The post China Mobile “In Talks” with Apple to Offer iPhone 4S appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

(Photo Credit: Abe Olandres / Tech Wire Asia)

4G LTE on the iPad currently works only with two carriers across the US and Canada. As per 9to5Mac, Apple has changed the branding in quite a few countries: in the UK, Australia, the U.S., Canada, UAE, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, Ireland, and Hong Kong.

Incidentally, I walked into a Tata’s Croma store in Bangalore to check out the new iPad and it had the label of 4G+WiFi. The salesperson and the people inquiring were of the opinion that 4G on the iPad doesn’t work because India doesn’t have 4G yet — which is half-true. 4G on iPad wouldn’t work in India. But not for the reason you think!

Bharti Airtel has launched its 4G services in two cities : Kolkata and Bangalore. Would that mean the iPad’s 4G would work in those cities on an Airtel network? No it does not. The iPad’s 4G works on 2100 MHz and 700 MHz frequencies — both of which weren’t available for commercial use in India. What Bharti Airtel and Reliance have bought in the 4G auction is the 2300 MHz spectrum.

There are plans to auction 700MHz spectrum by the Indian government but we all know how these things turn out. So, it would be safe to assume that the new iPad’s 4G will not work in India for quite some time. You will be getting 3G speeds for the 4G price. Of course there is the enhanced front and rear cameras and the all new retina display to crave for, which makes it a worthy upgrade over the iPad 2.

Consumer education is really important and the salespersons aren’t really trained to educate customers on these nuances. Apple’s re-branding is a welcome move. But, consumers should be aware of these subtle differences, which turn out to be not-so-subtle after the box is opened and the plastic screen protector peeled off.

The post Apple iPad 4G Rebrands to iPad WiFi + Cellular appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Here are 10 things we really liked about the HTC One X:

1) Beautiful unibody design. This is by far one of the best-looking HTC handset we’ve ever used and reviewed. It’s thin and sexy at 8.9mm, has a slightly curved shape, smooth lines, fits well on the hands and over-all, a really nice design and construction.

2) Large HD display. With a 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 display, the One X is among the biggest of the superphones. HTC made sure to give it a 720p HD screen resolution (that’s 1280×720 pixels) making it really nice for watching videos and web browsing.

3) Fast quad-core processor. One of the first handsets to sport an NVidia Tegra 3 chip, the One X boasts of 4 main cores running at 1.5GHz each (plus a 5th core for power-saving at 500MHz) and 12 cores for the GPU. This makes it blazing fast and great for graphics-rich mobile gaming.

4) Great 8MP shooter. HTC is not known for having nice built-in cameras with their handsets but the 8-megapixel sensor on the HTC One X performs really well. Photos are a bit over-saturated at times but turn out crisp and clear.

5) NFC-capable. Complemented with the right accessories, NFC works like a charm. It will also soon paved the way for cash-less mobile payments so it’s good to have it as an integrated feature.

6) Beats Audio. HTC continues to bank on Beats Audio to make their handsets more appealing to younger crowds. It also doesn’t hurt that the earphones that are paired with it are very popular. Beats Audio technology enables the sound on the HTC One X more full, giving it better clarity and oomph.

7) Large internal storage. HTC usually integrates between 1GB to 4GB of internal storage on mosts of their handsets. The HTC One X has 32GB (around 26GB of which is usable for storage).

8) Hard, solid body. We dropped the HTC One X several times (some, we actually intended) and it did not suffer from any scratches or bruises. Of course, we don’t recommend you doing this to your own device.

9) Ice Cream Sandwich. The HTC One X came with the latest Android 4.0 mobile operating system, which allows for a more flexible and feature-packed user-experience, better battery management, and improved performance.

10) HTC Sense 4.0 UI. Admittedly the best UI and skin on an Android phone, the HTC Sense offers enhanced user-experience, eye-candy and customizability of the handset.

The HTC One X is far from perfect and has its fair share of shortcomings.

While the internal storage is acceptably sizable, there’s no option to expand the memory capacity so you’ll have to make do with the 26GB usable space. Also, since the One X has a unibody design, the internal battery is not user-replaceable. It’s still possible to have it replaced in the future but you’ll have to bring it to a service center. Aside from those, we can’t think of anything else to complain about.

Nevertheless, the elegant design and top-of-the-line hardware configuration impressed us a lot. And we dare say this is among the top smartphones that ever came out in 2012 so far.

The post 10 Things That Make the HTC One X ‘The One’ appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

SingTel admits its mobile broadband service is slow, and promises to improve speed and reliability with network upgrades. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

According to a recent Google study, Singapore offers one of the slowest mobile broadband speeds in the region, even with the city-state being a major business hub in the region. A website takes an average of 12 seconds to load in the country, compared with Hong Kong’s 4.6 seconds and South Korea’s 6 seconds.

Malaysia and Indonesia lag behind Singapore, but even Vietnam has faster mobile speeds.

SingTel has about 50% of Singapore’s mobile market, with M1 and Starhub comprising the rest. The company has dropped unlimited data plans to help ease congestion, and has also offered higher-end “Priority Pass” plans for faster data speeds. SingTel also offers a 4G network in high-use areas and central business districts, which offer support for LTE-enabled devices like the new iPad. M1 likewise carries a 4G network in high-use areas, while StarHub will offer 4G within the year.

The Google study only takes into account locally-hosted websites. However, telcos should take into account that 70% of websites accessed from Singapore are overseas, says J.P. Morgan head of Asia telecom research James Sullivan. As such, improving local broadband speeds will only do so much in improving Internet access speeds. With the bottleneck involving access to content hosted internationally, telcos will need to lay out more communications cables or satellite uplinks in order to support demand.

Singtel reported a 30% increase in profit in the first quarter of 2012, with SG$ 1.25 billion (US$ 1.03 billion) compared with SG$ 992 million (US$ 793.98 million) in Q1 2011, aided by a SG$ 270 million (US$ 216.10 million) tax credit.

The post SingTel Admits Wireless Broadband is Slow, Promises Improvements appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

(Photo credit: Shutterstock)

Despite having spectrum, Reliance Industries hasn’t launched its services yet. Reliance Industries through the acquisition of Infotel has re-entered the Indian telecom space. It doesn’t have the infrastructure to go with the spectrum. Reliance is also unwilling to share the existing infrastructure and plans to build its own towers, 100,000 of them.

Airtel certainly has the first-mover advantage here but it will be ephemeral. Reliance has licenses in all the telecom circles in India, which Airtel doesn’t. Reliance can pump in a lot of cash to get things going. Shortly put, when Reliance enters Airtel will not be the only game in town. In fact, there will not be an Airtel game in a lot of towns.

Pricing

In addition to buying the dongle (which is also expensive), Airtel’s pricing plans are little expensive. Since there is no competition around, calling Airtel’s plan expensive could probably is premature. I don’t mind it.

Airtel’s 4G Plan rentals start with Rs. 999 (US$ 18.80) per month and go up to Rs. 2999 (US$ 56.45) for a 30 GB download limit. Like all things Airtel, 4G has a “fair usage policy” with the Rs. 999 plan having a 6GB download limit. Once you cross it, your speed falls down to 128 kbps. 4G, which promises speeds into tens of megabytes per second, doesn’t really match with the 128 kbps and the fair usage policy.

Not to disappoint the Schumacher’s of the Broadband world, Airtel has introduced Smartbytes for its 4G plans. You can buy a 1 GB download limit package for a particular price and experience the same speed. The Smartbytes package already exist for Airtel’s Broadband users and I am a victim of it. I have a feeling that Airtel is eating my bandwidth before I did but that’s  for another story.

Devices

Whether it is Airtel or Reliance, they still have one problem to solve: the devices. There aren’t any! The new iPad was released as an LTE enabled device, and by all means a 4G device elsewhere in the world. But not in India! The new iPad works on 2100 MHz and 700 MHz frequencies. India has auctioned support for the 2300 Mhz spectrum. There are plans to auction off the 700 MHz frequency but it would fall into the “I will believe it when I see it” category.

Airtel is selling MiFi devices along with the plan but we are already moving away from dongles. 3G dongles are already an extraneous appendage attached to our laptops and desktops. I’m not sure if I want to go back to using dongles.

4G in its current form is expensive and probably not user-friendly. Whoever takes care of both will rake in the 4G moolah.

Read more : India 4G update

The post 4G Comes to Bangalore, But When Are the Devices Coming? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

(Photo credit: Shutterstock)

India’s mobile Web usage is just under 50% as of 2nd quarter of 2012, according to figures released by Statcounter. Meanwhile, wired access is steeply falling. Trak.in has observed that the trend is interesting, because the rest of the world is likewise seeing a rise in mobile access and a fall in wired access, but not as steeply as in India.

This could be due to ease of access. “Very few Indians have access to internet through Desktop PCs or Laptops,” says Arun Prahudesai. In contrast, mobile access has become a cost-effective means of going online.

Jon Russell adds that the cost of laying out broadband infrastructure in the rural areas has become prohibitive. As such, mobile access has become the preferred mode of going online in emerging markets. “4G offers the potential to increase Internet access and provide a better, faster user experience, once more compatible handsets are active in the market.”

The same trend can likewise be seen in other countries, like China, where 38% of users access the Internet through mobile devices. Given the rise in smartphone sales worldwide, this is a trend that telecommunication companies and other stakeholders should consider when setting up online apps and services.

The post Mobile Web to Overtake Desktop Access in India by 2013 appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

(Photo credit: Shutterstock)

Of these five players, Qualcomm and Augere haven’t made any noise about their launch plans. In fact, Qualcomm wanted to sell its spectrum in 4 circles to Airtel. Luckily for Airtel, Qualcomm and Airtel have licenses in different circles. In all likelihood, Airtel will get Qualcomm’s spectrum. Aircel, the other dominant player with spectrum allocation in 8 circles, has also been mum about its 4G plans.

Bharti Airtel, Reliance and Tikona have either made announcements or launched their services. Let’s look at them.

Airtel

Airtel became the first service provider in the country to launch 4G services. It launched in the Kolkata circle. Airtel partnered with ZTE for equipment and services. Airtel has spectrum allocated in 3 other circles — Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab.

Airtel’s 4G rate plans are noteworthy. It offers a Rs. 999 (US$ 19) plan for a free download limit of 6 GB. Beyond 6 GB, the speed will drop down to 128 kbps. Airtel’s 4G services promises theoretical speeds from 100 MBPS to 1 GBPS. While that kind of speed might not be possible in the real world, it could offer above 4 MBPS, which is what most of India’s broadband users are used to. Dropping from such high speed to a paltry 128 kbps seems unreasonable. There are other plans from Airtel. The maximum download limit is 18 GB which costs Rs. 1999 (US$ 38) per month.

These plans by Airtel are much better than the 3G plans, where there is no way to track the usage. Beyond a certain usage the new charges will apply without the user being notified.

Airtel acknowledges, though, that there is a dearth of 4G devices in its current offering, but plans to launch 4G MiFi devices. The new iPad — which is LTE compliant — doesn’t work with India’s 4G frequencies, however.

Reliance

Reliance, which holds licenses in 22 circles through its Infotel brand, has partnered with Huawei and Alcatel Lucent for devices and network rollout. Reliance is also planning to set-up 100,000 telecom towers exclusively for its 4G launch.

Reliance has the option to piggy-back on existing towers, but has chosen to launch its own towers. The launch of its 4G services is expected by end of this year. Reliance is also rumored to launch a 4G tablet to go with its services.

Tikona

Tikona Digital, the other prominent player, has announced its plans to spend Rs 1,000 crore (US$ 190 million) in the next two years to launch its data offerings on 4G/LTE networks. Tikona holds licenses in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh.

The 700 MHz Twist

The 700 MHz band is believed to be thrice efficient as the 2,300 MHz band that was auctioned in 2010. The Indian government will auction this spectrum for broadband wireless. This is the spectrum which the New iPad also uses. Given what we have seen so far in the auctions, I don’t expect the new auctions to happen without ruckus.

Also read : How much will the Indian government get from 3G and 4G auctions?

The post India 4G Update: Reliance, Tikona, Airtel & More appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.