Malaysia's poor performance in 2009 Oxford/Cisco Global Broadband Quality Score: MSC failed?

The latest global Broadband Quality Study revealed that three Asian countries South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong are world leaders in providing top quality consumer broadband services. Thirteen years ago Malaysia proclaimed the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) as “a gift to the world” and the centerpiece of the country’s strategic initiative to leapfrog the nation into the IT era to become one of the world IT powers.

It's a fact that Malaysia is not an international IT hotspots due to its poor quality, billion of investments in Cyberjaya failed to produce Malaysia to deliver quality broadband services to consumers. According to the 2009 Oxford/Cisco Global Broadband Quality Score survey, Malaysia ranks 53rd out of 66 countries in terms of the quality and reach of its network. Some of our leader will proudly proclaim that the country is still ahead of Somalia, Zimbabwe, Haiti and ect. Shame on you!

This year, the study covers a total of 66 countries (and 13 are from Asia); additional 24 countries compared to 2008, plus new analysis on broadband quality in more than 240 cities. In terms of Broadband Leadership score, among Asian countries, Malaysia is behind South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan and ahead of China and India.

Malaysia's quality of broadband below today's application threshold. We should have emerged as the worlds IT power. But why has Malaysia trailed so badly behind other countries when we were the first in the IT start-off with the proclamation of MSC in 1996? Ask yourself, who to blame?

DOWNLOAD SPEED (MALAYSIA IS AMONG THE COUNTRIES WITH THE SLOWEST DOWNLOAD SPEED; ONLY FASTER THAN SOUTH AFRICA, TUNISIA, INDIA, INDONESIA, EGYPT, NIGERIA AND KENYA)

QUALITY SCORE

IN THE BROADBAND LEADERSHIP MATRIX, MALAYSIA IS PLACED IN BETWEEN 'LEAP FROG' AND 'CATCH UP' GROUP

Malaysiakini.com helping Malaysians to overcome the "Growing Culture of Fear"

http://www.malaysiakini.com/

The image of Malaysia is of a country with a superior economic and financial infrastructure but things aren't so good when it comes to human rights and press freedoms, the mainstream media still can't criticise the government directly. Luckily miles away from Kuala Lumpur's centre, there is a narrow lane which leads to a corner building. This is where Malaysia's independent online newspaper Malaysiakini is housed.

The site is known for publishing stories, breaking news, updates and much more which are quite critical and not really touched by the state media. For instance, human rights violations or abuses by the state and the police. The country's first online news journal was launched in late 1999 when the long-time ruler Mahatir Mohammad, known for his autocratic style, was still in power. And Malaysiakini.com now is the nations most famous online media.

Amid the tight restrictions on print and broadcast media, the online media now have a perfect chance to expand in Malaysia. Masses of online sites and blogs have cropped up in recent years and have fast become an alternative source of news and opinion. But many of them which are too critical come under constant fire from the government. It accuses them of spreading lies and has threatened them with harsh penalties and tighter controls. For being too outspoken, Raja Petra and several other bloggers bullied by the government repeatedly through courts and detentions.

Malaysiakini.com is assisting Malaysians in creating a better Malaysia without racialist policies, religious bigotry, corrupt practices concealed and incompetent governance. My hope for Malaysiakini.com is that it will continues its struggle to deliver true facts and news like now forever for Malaysians.

THANK YOU, MALAYSIAKINI!

Suddenly, Everyone Starts Blogging.....

TUN DR MAHATHIR'S "CHEDET"

Malaysia's political leaders are rushing to set up blogs and increase their postings on existing ones after recent polls showed how effective the Internet has been. The move signals a dramatic turnaround because until recently, senior political leaders dismissed bloggers as rumour-mongers and even described some as 'stupid' and 'monkeys'. The authorities have also detained some bloggers for allegedly libelous or seditious postings.

Former Selangor MB Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo started his blog towards last March, another colleague of his started one. This is the Malacca Chief Minister, Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam. The two must have gotten over their fear of being described liars, and monkeys. It's early days yet, but Dr Khir's blog appears to have received tremendous response since he started. He said that it's impossible to respond to every query but he read every single comment that has submitted by the readers. For sure, don't forget Tun Dr Mahathir's Chedet, and Datuk Seri Najib's new website that had been launched just few months ago.

The bloggers joined several Opposition bloggers who have been writing much earlier. They include Jeff Ooi, Tony Pua, Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang. The opposition party leaders have much more experience in blogging field. The blog turned to an important source of information in our nation even before March 8 political Tsunami.

MPs and ADUNs would be in a better position to try and convince voters to vote for them through blog. These people did not blog just for the fun of it but they blog because they want to engage their voters, and blogging give the voters direct access to their "wakil rakyat".

No More Racial Sentiments!

Compare us with Brunei, which gained independence 27 years after us. The Bruneian Proclamation declares Brunei "a sovereign, democratic and independent Malay Muslim monarchy". Our Proclamation, on the other hand, announces that we "shall be for ever a sovereign democratic and independent State founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare and happiness of its people".

Our founding fathers were not too worried about things involving race. They did not declared officially as a Malay state or a Muslim state; they did not need to call for Malay unity or Muslim unity. But they did call for the all Malayan unity. Even if they did believe that in the short term, some authoritarianism was necessary to clamp down on ethnic tension, they knew that in the long run, all that matters is that the people of Malaysia are happy, that they have liberty and justice.

So what were some political parties talking about when they met over "Malay unity"? Was it about how to improve the lot of the Malays by lording it over other Malaysians with some ideology of ketuanan? Or they just purposely ignoring the non-Muslim which are almost 35% of the Malaysian citizen? We are facing a lot of crisis nowadays, including the hike of inflation rate, leadership crisis, worrying sports performance, drop of the Malaysian Universities in the world rankings and I have a long list of the problems. So, hope all Malaysian focus on those problems instead of racial issues.

Malays should believe multiracial liberalism concept, then only we able to form strong and competent Malaysian. After 51 years of national independence we are still talking about unity among Malays, among Chinese, among Indians and among other races. These should be the issues of the past and now as Malaysian we should get on the progress and developments upon Vision 2020.

No more racial sentiments!

Tamil Schools!?

Based on the table, it’s clearly stated that amount of Tamil schools decreasing each year gradually. Despite the increase in the number of students in Tamil schools, government still controls the growth of Tamil schools in our nation.

With only 523 schools around, Tamil schools struggling with lots of problems. Instead of having access to a large field, a school hall, science laboratories and a computer laboratory, the pupils of Tamil schools have to manage with the bare necessities. Some of the Tamil schools have no field, no laboratory or library, staff room for teachers or even proper toilets, no canteen, no proper roofing, and sometimes, no classrooms even.

Each year Tamils schools UPSR performance are moderate and the quantity of students increasing progressively. Why not government carried out new plan to restore the Tamil schools that had been destroyed so far? Yes... Of course now the Malaysian Indian already migrated to town. But in my opinion, the Tamil schools must be moved to town side which with more Indian peoples around nowadays.

The education ministry must look on this matter. They should restructure new plan for Tamil schools in order to get fair financial aid as national schools receiving currently and strictly need to restore or build new schools in major towns around Malaysia.

Year	Schools	Students
1938	547	22,820
1947	741	33,945
1956	877	47,407
1957	888	50,766
1958	874	53,098
1959	840	56,297
1960	815	60,726
1961	784	63,917
1962	745	66,504
1963	720	67,649
1964	704	69,362
1965	700	72,828
1966	695	76,350
1967	686	79,203
1968	666	81,428
1969	662	80,750
1970	657	79,278
1971	647	77,192
1972	635	78,758
1973	631	78,854
1974	618	79,674
1975	612	80,404
1976	606	80,103
1977	606	78,841
1978	600	77,525
1979	596	77,013
1980	589	73,958
1981	583	73,513
1982	579	73,897
1983	575	74,255
1984	571	75,028
1985	566	76,653
1986	555	81,051
1987	553	83,228
1988	548	87,837
1989	548	92,243
1990	547	96,120
1991	544	99,876
1992	543	102,493
1993	541	104,638
1994	539	103,963
1995	538	102,776
1996	531	99,525
1997	530	98,072
1998	530	94,907
2000	524	89,175
2006	523	101,972
2007	523	105,618