Stop Online Piracy Act is Working

The Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA bill announced last year in 2011 was proposed to counter online piracy and apparently, help people keep their jobs. However, announcement of postponing the bill came in January 2012 due to the mounting pressure by the Internet powers – Wikipedia and WordPress to name a few.

All is well but not ends well

Though the SOPA bill may not have been passed, authorities have rained down on 1 of the biggest file sharing websites; Megaupload. It has forced the file sharing service to shut down its operations with follow up arrests of its management and founders.

And the ripple effect ensued. Here’s some quick updates thanks to LowYat members.

FileServe – No longer renewing/selling premium accounts.

FileJungle – Deleting files. Locked in the US.

UploadStation – Locked in the US.

FileSonic – News is arbitrary (under FBI investigation).

VideoBB – Closed. May disappear soon.

Uploaded – Banned in US and FBI went after the disappeared owners.

FilePost – Deleting all materials but will maintain executables, PDFs and TXT files.

Videoz – Closed and locked in the countries affiliated with the US.

4shared – Deleting files with copyright and waits in line at the FBI.

MediaFire – Called to testify in the next 90 days and it will open doors to the FBI.

Org torrent – Could vanish with everything within 30 days as “he is under criminal investigation”

Network Share mIRC – Awaiting the decision of the case to continue or terminate everything.

Where Malaysia stands in all of this?

The Internet community here as well weren’t too happy about SOPA and people were talking about it.

the fall of file sharing sites; now there is no reason to get UNIFI

So what I’m now interested in is will the above ripples affect the broadband user signup rate. Especially services currently pushing fibre to the home.

The Wedding Meme Proposal

It appeared on MSNBC, CBS News, Huffington Post, Gizmodo, Mashable, MSN Malaysia, Yahoo Taiwan and some other big time online press. Seriously, it was a real viral story never expected to happen. And when it went viral, it really went viral. No nonsense listening from a person who tell you it’ll go viral. This just did it, because it was worth sharing.

Congratulations to Timothy aka BossStewie and Audrey aka Fourfeetnine.

P1 Delivers One Plan Giftpack Right To The Doorstep This Festive Season For Online & Call-In Orders

Petaling Jaya – This festive and New Year season, give the gift of a better indoor and outdoor broadband experience in one special gift pack by Packet One Networks (Malaysia) Sdn.Bhd. (“P1”), Malaysia’s first and leading 4G wireless broadband service provider. The ONE Plan^TM is already a value buy as it comes with two modems for home and on-the-go at the price of one broadband subscription. For this festive and New Year season, P1 offers an online and call-in exclusive with a special gift pack delivered right to your doorstep and a further RM100 discount off activation fee.

The 2-in-1 home and on-the-go One Plan^TM is designed to provide a better indoor and outdoor broadband experience facilitating the user with the right modem in the right environment. There are four different packages for the P1 One Plan^TM to serve different user requirements in terms of speed, quota and price; they are the One 69 Plan, One 89 Plan, One 129 Plan and the One 169 Plan.

The lowest One Plan^TM for light users is the ONE 69 Plan which offers speeds of 1 Mbps for both modems and a shared quota of 3GB. It also includes 100 minutes of free voice calls to local fixed and mobile numbers and IDD calls to 10 popular destinations including Singapore, China and Hong Kong.

Online and call-in customers also get to enjoy the current year-end promotion for the One 69 Plan and One 89 Plan which comes with additional RM20 off for the first three months: This means customers pay only RM49 and RM69 respectively in the first three months. This offers ends 31 December 2011.

Consumers interested in the special One Plan^TM giftpack can purchase or find out more on www.p1.com.my/oneplan/star or by calling 1300 03 8887.

Yes And Samsung To Offer The Best Value In Performance And Mobility

Malaysia’s fastest mobile router and Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9 bundle to offer consumers the best mobile performance that’s big on value

KUALA LUMPUR — EMBARGO until November 25, 2011 — Yes, one of the most advanced 4G networks in the world, today announced its collaboration with Samsung Malaysia Electronics (SME) Sdn. Bhd., a leading mobile phone provider, to offer the best in mobility and performance. In conjunction with the launch of the Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9, Yes and Samsung are offering a special package that combines Malaysia’s fastest 4G mobile router, the Yes Huddle, with Samsung’s latest tablet, the GALAXY Tab 8.9.

Designed to offer true mobile broadband performance, the package offers a total saving of RM159 when compared to the devices being purchased separately.

“The Yes Huddle is a perfect companion for the Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9. Mobile internet devices like the Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9 along with other smartphones and tablets need an amazingly fast mobile network to make the most out of their capabilities. Current 3G networks are not built for data. Yes 4G is the only mobile network that can offer this amazing performance consistently. Yes just works” said Wing K. Lee, Chief Executive Officer, YTL Communications.

“The Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9 is another outstanding result of our constant innovation and commitment to revolutionize ultimate mobility on-the-go powered by state of the art technology for powerful performance that comes in a sleek and stylish design. We are glad to be able to partner withYes 4G, a truly high performance mobile broadband service that can deliver immensely fast connectivity consistently within a mobile environment. With the Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9 and the Yes 4G Huddle tie-up, we hope to bring the best in performance and mobility to our customers.” said Kwon Jae Hoon, Managing Director, Samsung Malaysia Electronics.

The Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9 is available from today at all authorised Samsung retailers for RM1,299. For even better value and performance customers can choose the Samsung-Yes 4G bundle that combines the Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9 (RM1,299) with the Yes Huddle (RM399) inclusive of Yes ID (worth RM50) and Yes credit worth RM90 (RM30 over 3 months) for a total of RM1,679. The Samsung-Yes 4G bundle is available from 25 November until 31 December 2011 at Senheng, Harvey Norman and Yes Retail outlets.

The table below shows the savings and items included in the Samsung-Yes 4G Bundle Package:

Samsung	Yes 4G	Savings
Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9 WiFi	Huddle (RM399)	Total value before savings: GALAXY Tab 8.9 + Yes Huddle + Yes ID + Yes Credit = RM1,838
	Yes ID (RM50)
	RM90 credit (RM30 x 3 months)	Total value after savings GALAXY Tab 8.9 + Yes Huddle + Yes ID + Yes Credit) = RM1,679
Device value: RM1,299	Package value: RM539	Total savings: RM159

P1 Celebrates New “Potong Stim!” Campaign at Comedy Thursday

Kuala Lumpur - Packet One Networks (Malaysia) Sdn.Bhd. (“P1”), Malaysia’s first and leading 4G wireless broadband service provider, lived up to its reputation of having a sense of humour when it sponsored Comedy Thursday at Zouk KL on 6^th October to celebrate its new Potong Stim!™ campaign.

The theme of the night was, of course, “potong stim” and some of the five comedians – Papi Zak, Kavin Jayaram, Rizal V. Greyzel, Steve Northcott and special guest comedian from New Zealand, Tony Christiansen – shared their “potong stim” moments.

Similar to P1, Comedy Thursday started three years ago from ground zero and according to Lai, P1’s sponsorship of the Comedy Thursday event is its way of supporting all things fresh and local – in this case, local comedy and comedians.

Matt Bellotti, Editorial Director of Time Out KL, said “We started Comedy Thursday in May 2008 outdoors at Asian Heritage Row with about sixty people in the audience.  Now we are in Zouk, with over 350 people and tonight we celebrated our 10,000th guest!  Comedy plays a very important role in any society, so it’s great to see companies like P1 encouraging our comedians to continue and thrive and hopefully to inspire others to try comedy or just to come out and support it.”

Michael Lai, CEO of P1 explained that the Potong Stim theme came from P1’s desire to inform the public that using your mobile broadband dongle at home is “potong stim”. “We just don’t say it like anybody else because we embrace humour and also try to entertain through our communications,” said Lai.

P1’s latest Potong Stim!^TM campaign informs that a mobile dongle is not built for home use but  for light surfing when you are out and about.  For optimized broadband at home, a modem with a larger antenna that is connected to a higher voltage power source is required to ensure a stronger signal that can penetrate through layers of walls.

A P1 research conducted by Frost & Sullivan showed that 93% of broadband users in Malaysia are frustrated with their broadband experience just by using their mobile dongles at home and, as a result, P1 responded with the ONE 69 Plan. The plan includes a home modem, a mobile dongle and 100 minutes of free voice calls to fixed, mobile and IDD numbers bundled in for only RM69 per month.

“The ONE 69 Plan is really the best value broadband plan in the market today,” said Lai.  “The low price point is designed specifically for mobile broadband users who are used to paying in the range of RM50 to RM90. With the One 69 Plan, they get an attractive 3-in-1 bundle and more importantly, they don’t have to “potong stim” their home broadband experience!”

P1 treated its guests, comprising of members of the media, resellers and some customers to a fun night of laughter.