Rais: No plan to register bloggers
By Husna Yusop and Giam Say Khoon | The Sun
KUALA LUMPUR (June 18, 2009) : The government has no plans to list or register bloggers and they are still free to post information on the internet, Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said today.
“There are various processes of disseminating information these days. Whatever the authorities do, the websites are still free to post any information on the Internet.
“At the moment, we do not list or register bloggers operating on the Net. And, there is no plan to do that. However, to maintain harmony in society, they (bloggers) must follow the laws,” he told Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur).
Lim in his supplementary question said the plan to register bloggers, made by some quarters recently, was a backward move.
Last month, Rais was reported saying the proposal was good but required indepth study.
Lim also complained about the broadband service which he said can also be called “narrowband” or “snailband”.
To this, Rais said the government has put aside RM2.4 billion to improve the service in the long term so that it could meet the original objectives.
He said at present, the rate of IT penetration in households is at 23% and the government is confident it can reach 50% by end of next year.
“At the moment, this service is widely enjoyed by the people in the Klang Valley. However, we will do more to improve it to reach the remote areas and all schools,” he added.
To the original question from Datuk Ismail Abdul Muttalib (BN-Maran), Rais said from 2005 until now, action has been taken against 24 cases involving compounds worth more than RM380,000 under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
“These private broadcaster were compounded for various offences, including breaching the conditions set under the broadcasting licence,” he added.
As for offences regarding abuse of websites, six cases involving eight individuals have been brought to court for insulting the Sultan of Perak whereby one of them had pleaded guilty and fined RM10,000.
I know why it is snailband.
Streamyx package details
To add to the comment above;
Looks like TM Net is very honest with its customers.
EXPECT LOW SPEED.
Has there been a law to repeal the 10-Point Bill of Guarantee, one of which is “Ensure no Internet censorship.”
“Streamyx download and upload speed is guaranteed for local content access only. TM is not responsible for the low speed of either download or upload of international content access.”
Well, I think we are living in a coconut shell and doesn’t need to communicate with the World-Wide Web. I think we should liberalize our ISP industry and let Streamyx be responsible for nothing, not even local content access. Then, they can do whatever they like, come out with whatever policy they like.
Bottleneck Band.
“xv. Streamyx download and upload speed is guaranteed for local content access only. TM is not responsible for the low speed of either download or upload of international content access.”
Why? Do we have superior connections locally but international connections are bad?
Do other countries have similar problems?
But why isn’t our Streamyx people doing anything about it as this problem has been on for many years already. Consumers should be compensated.
No point for them to introduce all the packages when it all boils down to slow speed. We are not on the Internet Superhighway but on untarred village roads with potholes.
Noooooooooooooooooooooo please……we have more Internet users than what we can support. This is why international traffic is shaped.
“We are not on the Internet Superhighway but on untarred village roads with potholes”
But then we have country bumpkins and nincompoops who do not know the difference.
cannot have high level internet service in Malaysia because in Cyber world, where BN is losing big time as devoid of protection under printing press act etc, political suicide for BN if their voters bank in rural areas are exposed, informed and subject to alternate source of news.
no wonder Najib is visiting China, expert in internet censorship
The rate of penetration is low due to the fact that the starting rate for a decent internet speed is too high.
Local..OK
International…got problem!!…why?
Sound fishy to me.
And here we keep on paying monthly service ..good for local only?
Can you imagine fixing up a phone…cannot call or receive overseas?
But it is UMNO trade mark…short term success…no experiences…depend on hired expertise… no follow ups..no permanent solutions to any problems..always solving problems..with short term results…..charging users.. long long term…ever efficient to cut us off….if you do not pay punctually.
Our ministers are mostly unsuccessful lawyers…teachers and doctors….only have big mouths to brag.
Why are we treated this way? Well, we have too many dumbs in this country and we are prepared to take anything thrown at us. It is not just snailband. What about Astro. What sh!t programmes are they giving? Of course the dumb will never know. Right now in fact this dumb is here trying his level best to convince others to be dumb like him.
no wonder Najib is visiting China, expert in internet censorship, lee wee tak
True, China is never a good role model, except for its unfettered capitalism. But then, we have dumbs and balls who never stop praising China. May be someday, they will also praise Zim and Myanmar.
TM controls the last mile in telecommunication in this country. So TM alone is responsible for the performance of internet broadband in the country.
TomThumb mentioned superhighway. It is one word which I have almost forgotten. How could I when the highway was supposed to be malaysia’s gift to the world.
Malaysia’s MultiMedia Supercorridor sounds like MultiMedia SuperKaki Lima.
Supercorridor? You are mistaken, it’s now called SuperLorong
What exactly is the 2.4bn for? Many countries manage to get 24Mbit/s out of their copper consumer connections. What happened to TM’s FibreComm windfall? Recall that FibreComm was a TNB project that was declared a ‘potential monopoly’ by the MCMC (our information fairy godmother) when it was finished and transferred to TM, an actual monopoly. Malaysia has consumer infrastructure that could support high bandwidths, and has a national fibre infrastructure. TM also has massive overseas investments in foreign telcos. On what basis do they now need more cash? If their network is falling behind and their foreign investments are growing, it seems inescapably true that they have misused funds that should have been reinvested in the national network.
had our politicians running the government not said “It is either our way or the highway”, democracy would have had a chance.
“The government has no plans to list or register bloggers and they are still free to post information on the internet, Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said today”
I really think our gomen does not know what they are saying. Even if they rule to register all bloggers, how on earth are they going to implement? Use ISA, OSA, Seditions Act, Printing Act to frighten people? Or, appoint a 2-ringgit company to be registrar while charging a fee for every registration?
Then there is also the technicalities of how to define a blogger, whether he/she/it is residing within the country, whether the file server resides in the country, whether the TCP/IP originates in the country, etc. Aah… the beauty of the Internet obeys no laws and has no boundaries
Narrowband/snailband still OK, make more noise then we will have “Noband”.
Another example of MALAYSIA BOLEH (mati)! SATU LAGI PROJEK BARISAN NASIONAL!!!!!!
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/6/19/focus/4136696&sec=focus
“they have misused funds that should have been reinvested in the national network.” – OrangRojak
This is very true.
Look at our country’s FDI flows and it is telling.
Malaysia 2005 FDI inflow: USD 3.9 billion, outflow: 2.9 billion
Malaysia 2006 FDI inflow: USD 6.0 billion, outflow: 6.0 billion
Malaysia 2007 FDI inflow: USD 8.4 billion, outflow: 10.9 billion
Our net FDI flow in 2007 was negative. This is likely due to our ‘glocal’ companies spending huge amounts of money investing in overseas businesses.
Companies like TM take their profits (harvested from the rakyat) and invest in overseas companies without having to answer to the rakyat. Then they demand that the rakyat’s tax money be used to fund any infrastructure project in Malaysia. When the infrastructure is completed they then charge the rakyat again for the use of the new infrastructure to get more profits.
From hare speed to tortoise pace
WHY NOT?
By WONG SAI WAN
Malaysia, once thought of as the forerunner in the multimedia sector, now lags behind on every front in what is supposedly our future.
A DOZEN years ago, the International Advisory Panel of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) held its inaugural meeting at the Gates Building at Stanford University in Palo Alto, the heart of the US Silicon Valley which was, and still is, the heart of the cyberworld.
Then Prime Minister Datuk Seri (now Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad chaired the meeting and the members of the panel represented the who’s who of the electronic world then.
Sun Microsystems boss Scott McNeally was there. So was Acer founder Stan Shih and Sony’s Nobuyuki Idei. Also present were venture capitalist James Barksdale and then Compaq CEO Eckhard Pfeifer and then Cisco Systems CEO (now chairman) John Chambers.
The only one missing was Microsoft head honcho Bill Gates. But Dr Mahathir had met him a year earlier and was to meet him again the day following the meeting.
Everyone was abuzz with Malaysia’s idea of a dedicated area just for the development of the cyberworld – which was then just known as multimedia. All of them wanted a piece of the MSC then.
It was a proud moment to be a Malaysian that week and I was fortunate to be there to witness the whole thing. Dr Mahathir was leading a huge business delegation to the United States to promote the MSC, then thought of by the world as a groundbreaking idea.
The concept of a triumvirate – the people, business and the Government – working in concert to make the MSC a reality sounded so attractive.
The Government also drafted laws to protect the MSC so that it would be a truly free environment that would allow ideas to bloom.
That was then. Along came the Asian financial crisis and the sacking of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (his black eye and the sordid trial put paid to the pride that was felt all those years ago). We had since been recovering slowly.
Then came last week. I met two Europeans at a golf game – one a Swiss whom I shall call Johann, and the other a French whom I will refer to as Pierre.
The two men are chief executives of multi-national companies with manufacturing plants in Malaysia and the region.
While Johann had arrived in the country less than a month ago, Pierre is a 10-year veteran who has seen Malaysia at its best and worst.
The two noticed me typing away on my Blackberry phone and inquired if I found the device useful. Their question set me off on how my life has changed with the BB (Blackberry for the uninitiated).
From there, our conversation turned to the Internet or more accurately, the lack of it.
The two men spent about 30 minutes bemoaning the lack of speed, and how their lives had been badly affected by the slow speed of Internet services in Malaysia.
“My kids made a video to wish their grandfather happy birthday. It was not a very big file – less than 120 megabytes,” said Pierre.
“It took me more than two hours to upload the file and send it to my brother in France so he can show our father.
“In France, my brother took just 10 minutes to download the same file.”
Johann’s crestfallen face spoke volumes when it came to his turn to tell his sad tale of Malaysia’s Internet services.
“I am so used to our Swiss speed. I only get 30 megabits per second when downloading. Malaysia’s Internet connection is just too slow,” he said.
At this juncture, my patriotism kicked in and I tried to justify the situation to these two Europeans, but after a while I found myself agreeing with everything they said.
There was nothing good I could say about Malaysian cyber connections.
The best I could come out with was to ask them to be patient as the Government had initiated the National Broadband Project and that in a few years the whole of the Klang Valley would be wired up.
Pierre and Johann both gave me that “you got to be kidding” look. The Swiss pointed out that all towns in his home country had put in fibre optics years ago.
“They just dug and dug and wired everyone up. What are you all waiting for?” he asked.
He was “very impressed” when he first came to Malaysia 10 years ago.
“You all then had ADSL lines when we in France were still using dial-ups,” he recalled.
“But what happened? We are now surfing at real broadband speed and not the ‘best service possible’ practice as you have here in Malaysia.
“Johann, if you get 50% of the promised speed in Malaysia, consider yourself lucky.”
The conversation went downhill from there on and all three of us took swipes at the various Internet service providers in Malaysia.
Whatever national pride I had for our cyber venture was shattered in my conversation with Johann and Pierre.
When I got home, I tested my 1-megabit-per-second broadband speed. The result was depressing – the download speed was 406 kilobits per second and upload was 307 kilobits per second. Pierre was right – I could not even get 50% of the speed promised.
On Tuesday, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili will be a guest on The Star Online Live Chat programme.
He can be sure that although I will be away in Sweden attending a global conference by Ericsson on the future of the communication world, I will be e-mailing him some questions and giving him my opinion of our tortoise-speed Internet connections.
? Deputy Executive Editor Wong Sai Wan spends every free time tweeting, and is now totally dependent on his Blackberry to update his Facebook.
MSC is yet another example of BN’s dismal track record. Lots of big talk and chest thumping.
But at the end of the day, poor planning, management and various politicking warlords wanting their cut has consigned what was a decent idea into a laughing stock.
Lets not even talk about Singapore. Today, parts of Thailand and Indonesia has got faster internet speeds than Malaysia.
And TM continues to be provided the virtual monopoly over broadband infrastructure and services.
South Korea was much worse off than Malaysia in the 1960s. But now…
South Korea has completed its first space center and plans to launch a satellite from the site in July.
The planned launch, if successful, would mark the first time for South Korea to launch a rocket into space from its own territory. Since 1992, it has launched 11 satellites from overseas sites, all on foreign-made rockets.
The Naro Space Center was built on an island off Goheung, about 290 miles (465 kilometers) south of Seoul. More than 310 billion won ($250 million) was spent on the project, which took 4 1/2 years to complete, the ministry said in a statement.
Science Ministry official Shim Sung-eun said South Korea is the 13th country in the world to possess a space center.