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Saturday, July 29, 2017

Malaysia Broadband Access Services – When and Where to Complain


Foreword

I'm blogging about this subject as I came across several people (and that's bad) who were either having difficulties in approaching their ISP or had failed to get their ISP to act responsibly -- leaving them to unreasonably make do with the poor quality of their Internet connection.

A slow/poor Internet connection can be frustrating and in some instances mean loss of opportunity and also make you spend more time than you intended. 


Broadband combines connection capacity (bandwidth) and speed. Recommendation I.113 of the ITU Standardization Sector defines broadband as a “transmission capacity that is faster than primary rate Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) at 1.5 or 2.0 Megabits per second (Mbits)”. https://www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/birthofbroadband/faq.html

Let's Get Started


There is an authority in each country that acts as the regulator for Broadband Access Services, as like the MCMC (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission) does in Malaysia.

Whether you a residential or business customer subscribing to broadband access services from an ISP (Internet Service Provider), your rights are the same – that is, you are entitled to complain to your ISP when the quality of the service falls below your expectations.

Quality of Service is rated on connection availability, bandwidth availability, latency, jitter and packet loss.

The MCMC does not regulate jitter (the variation in latency as measured in the variability over time of the packet latency across a network). A network with constant latency has no variation or jitter.

It does however set the minimum requirements for the rest as follows,

Network Availability 99.9% of the time, excluding scheduled ISP maintenance works
Bandwidth Availability > 70% of your subscribed speed, 95% during busy hours
Latency < 85ms

Packet Loss < 1%


Note: Bandwidth is a measurement of how much data can be transferred at a time while speed is a measurement of how fast things are done.

According to “protocol”, you are expected to lodge a complaint with your ISP prior to any contact with the regulatory agencies. Why agencies as in plural?

Yup, there is another party to contact –

Communications & Multimedia Consumer Forum of Malaysia (CFM),
Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC),
Off Persiaran Multimedia,
63000, Cyberjaya,
Selangor Darul Ehsan.

Hotline : 1800 18 2222
Fax : 03 8320 9083
Email : aduan@cfm.org.my

Working Days : Mon - Fri, 9:00am to 6:00pm


The former acts to mediate between you and the ISP to resolve your complaint, while the latter is supposed to protect your rights as a consumer.


CONSUMER PROTECTION & COMPLAINTS BUREAU
Malaysia Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC)
MCMC Tower 1, Jalan Impact, Cyber 6, 63000 Cyberjaya Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

Hotline : 1800 – 188 – 030
Fax : 03 8688 1880
Email: aduanskmm@cmc.gov.my
Website: http://www.skmm.gov.my

Working Days: Mon – Fri, 8:30am to 5:30pm


WHY go through all the trouble to complain when most of the time all I need to do is to restart my connection?

Simple,

  • To make sure you're getting what you pay for. A speed test is useful if you feel a slow connection or want to see how your Internet is performing.
  • Avoid the inconvenience from too frequent and too many restarts.
  • Avoid allocating time for attending to the ISP’s service technician, who will come and find nothing wrong with your line signal quality and speed at the time of his visit.



Do the right thing today. When you don’t, nothing will improve.

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