Are you sick and tired of the slow speed and inconsistent broadband Internet that you’ve been getting through Streamyx in Sabah?  I am sure am.  But did you know there’s an alternative to Streamyx in Sabah?

WiMax. You’ve probably heard of it before, so I won’t bore you with the details.  Oh I can’t help myself, here are the details, prepare to get bored:

What is WiMax?

The best way to describe WiMax is that it’s similar to Wi-Fi.  You know, you sit at a Starbucks, flip open your laptop and the Internet is just there. WiMax is like that too – except you can have it in your house or office.

The biggest difference is the distance at which you can connect to the Internet.  Under ideal circumstances Wi-Fi has a reach of no more than 300m. However, circumstances are very rarely ideal and you can connect to the average Starbucks’ Internet from no further than 30m away, if you’re lucky.

WiMax, on the other hand, has a theoretical reach of up to 50km and a data rate of up to 70MiB per second. I say theoretical, because as this technical article on Wikipedia explains, you can have either or. Either you connect 50km away, or you can have it really fast.  It’s a sliding scale. So if you want to connect from far away, you have to sacrifice speed and if you want it really fast, you have to sacrifice distance.

A real-world situation is something like 10MiB/second for everybody within a 2km radius.  That’s still a hell-of-a-lot better than Streamyx’s 1MiB or 2MiB ADSL lines.

What equipment do I need, is it expensive?

There are 2 things you can do to receive WiMax.  The first is a WiMax receiver box not much different looking than a Wireless ADSL modem. That would sit on your desk exactly like your ADSL modem.  The second method is a box on the outside of your house the size of a laptop.

The difference?  With an indoor box your WiMax signal will get polluted when it cuts through walls, wires and is interfered with by other electrical equipment in your house or office. The hardware can clean the signal, but it takes time so the connection slows down.  The outside box gets a purer connection, more so if it can see the WiMax tower.  So with an outdoor box your Internet will be faster.

How much does it cost? Well, of that I’m not sure yet, but from what I’ve read it will cost 40% less than Streamyx.  This might only refer to monthly subscription fees and not the mula you will have to lay out for the box and/or installation.

So how do I get fast Internet access with WiMax in Sabah

That might be the good news.  RedTone apparently has 25% of Sabah’s population covered already (but not connected, aha!) and, says this article, they’ve had it going since August last year!

Wow, I heard of WiMax somewhere last year, but never paid any attention to it, because they said it will only be available this year.

Of course, I’m quite excited and immediately got onto redtone.com.  RedTone is one of 4 companies in Malaysia that got awarded the WiMax license, and RedTone in particular is responsible for Sabah and Sarawak.  But try as I might, I couldn’t find much about WiMax in East Malaysia on their website, never mind how to subscribe to it or the costs involved.

So I thought I’d drop them an email, but lo-and-behold, there’s no email address and no contact form.  Oh dear.  So I called the toll-free number, but the service agent couldn’t give me any information either.  He did take my contact details though and said a business manager will call me back.

That was at 5pm this afternoon, so we’ll see how quickly they respond.

The service rep also said that WiMax is not available for residential customers yet, only businesses.  So we’ll see what the deal is to get  a business connected with WiMax internet access.

I’m also itching to know what kind of connection speeds we’re talking about, because if WiMax really is an alternative to Streamyx, a stampede will ensue when people leave Streamyx to embrace WiMax.

But don’t cancel your Streamyx account just yet – RedTone first needs to reply my enquiry.

Update 01-02-09: Nobody, I’m sure, is suprised by the fact that, to date, RedTone has not replied my enquiry.  They claimed, in the news, to be covering 25% of Sabah’s population.  It seems the coverage is like the rain – it’s poring everywhere, but nobody’s actually out standing in it.

Having played for over a year already, it seemed time that the Ultimate Frisbee players of Sabah had an online home of their own. And thus www.sabahultimate.com was registered and is now the official website for Ultimate Frisbee players in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

Not, mind you, that we haven’t been online before.  Oh no, there’s a mailing list, and then there’s the Ultimate Frisbee Sabah Facebook group, which have gone great lenghts towards keeping all us Ultimate Frisbee playing Sabahans connected and in the know about upcoming events and pick-up games.

A website was required to reach those not on Facebook, or those who don’t regularly access their email (or have relegated our circulars to the spam box), as well as reach passers-by who just want to read about Ultimate Frisbee players and games in Kota Kinabalu and Sabah.  We get quite a few holiday makers passing through with an interest in playing Ultimate in Kota Kinabalu whilst on their holiday in Sabah and Borneo.

So, in future, if you’re looking to play Ultimate Frisbee in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah on the island of Borneo, whether you live here, work here or are heading here for holiday, you can get your Ultimate Frisbee Kota Kinabalu information, games schedules and others bits of interesting stuff from the Official Ultimate Frisbee Sabah website over at www.sabahultimate.com.

Wow, it’s 2009.  Where’d 2008 go, did anybody see?  I was just starting to settle into 2008, and now it’s 2009. And where’s those flying cars already?

Anyway, as I reflect on the year gone by I realise I became very jaded in 2008.

In 2008 I had to deal with certain people who sucked the life out of me and made my environment black and foul smelling. They smeared my personality with their hateful, excremental thoughts and numbed my optimism with their urine-odored actions.

But I closed 2008 off by wipping my arse of them with acceptance, flushing their fecal memories with hope and washing my hands of their ugly, piss-stianed actions with concentrated optimism that the one who matters will benefit from it all.

Now I want to find myself. The me who laughs in the face of adversity, the me who sees not a problem, but a challenge and the me who finds adventure in everyone and every place. The me I am underneath all this crud.

So here’s to 2009: Find Myself.

But to look to the future, you must study the past.  So here are the (mostly positive) highlights of 2008. Here, take my hand…

January 2008

At the start of 2008 I was needlessly in court fighting about something that needn’t have been fought over. My troubles were nothing compared to Chua Soi Lek, Malaysian Minister who started his year off with the most sensational sex scandal in Malaysia to date.

In Kota Kinabalu, I got a sneak peak at 1Borneo (which would open later in the year, way behind schedule and far from complete).  It had its share of controversies, floods and tenant woes, but 2009 might just be a good year for it.  Or not.

AirAsia.com brought their first Airbus to Kota Kinabalu and has since phased out all Boeings and now flies an all Airbus fleet.  They’ve added loads of destinations this year and I took advantage of a few of those.

February 2008

February we had some wicked celebration outings and parties.  I launched Sabahbah.com to showcase the tourism offerings of Kota Kinabalu and Sabah. It’s still getting over 5000 unique views per month and plans for it are in the works.

I bravely leap into the world of open source software and install a flavour of Linux,  Ubuntu 7.04.  My life suddenly becomes much richer, and easier as worries about viruses and Trojan horses all but disappear.

March 2008

I turn 31. The world remains the same.

Arthur C. Clarke passes away.  I read all of his books that I own as a tribute.

Issuu.com – the YouTube of the publishing world – hits the web. I quickly apply it for Sutera Harbour and  I introduce it to Breeze magazine who promptly adopts it too, and my blog post about it now ranks in the top 3 for ‘pdf page tunrning software’, turning tens of people per week onto the service.

The Loft is the only establishment in KK to observe Earth Hour, making a gesture that will possibly be echoed far and wide in 2009 when it comes around again.

April 2008

Our gaggle of Sabah Ultimate players, the Borneo Bristleheads, go to our first tournament, The Malaysia Ultimate Open in Kuala Lumpur.  We get our asses beaten, severely, but our love of the game of Ultimate is solidified and we start down the path of becoming Ultimate geeks. We now play much better.

Loving Ubuntu I upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and discover something new every day.  Why doesn’t everbody use Ubuntu?

May 2008

Highlight of the month is my trip to Bali with Julia, joined by John and Pip. We scored some cheap flights on AirAsia, unfortunetally booked so far in advance that we didn’t even know they were to start flying direct.  John and Pip gets on the direct flight while we go via KL.  Excellent trip.

June 2008

Maxis sheds some customers with a mammoth coverage failure. The total black-out lasts for almost 2 days, and the aftermath of dropped calls, jammed networks and undelivered text messages lasts nearly a week. They compound the service failure by failing, for most of the first day, to communicate with their customers.

I get involved in exposing a blog-link scam, Maybank dupes anxious Malaysians with an over-hyped, function deprived bankcard, Firefox 3 sets a download record, and it rains the most of 2008 in KK, cause floods and hideous traffic jams.  I also work my last days at Sutera Harbour before bidding my employer of 2 years farewell (as I publish this, their official website is still the one I designed – check the code – and it ranks superiorly in Google).

July 2008

A bit of a dull month was July 2008 (or perhaps I was just busy).  I upgraded to WordPress 2.6 (not without error, mind you) and South Africa starts their journey towards getting beaten in the Tri-Nations rugby tournement.

August 2008

I become very aware of Repetitive Strain Injury (result of sitting infront of my PC for increased hours) and I make a significant contribution to the environment (if I don’t toot my own horn, who will?) as I switch to Watershops’ 20c per litre water with my own container in lieu of a carton box with 12 plastic bottles per week.

September 2008

Busy month and emotionally the most taxing.  I do lots of posts, but most of them private. Beyond myself I pitch in and help with a Project Aware as we remove substantial amounts of rubbish from the national marine park.  A shadow of the Borneo Bristlheads also attend the Singapore Ultimate Open as part of team Satu Lagi.  We win nothing, but gain much knowledge.

October 2008

Turmoil of September spills into October, not much to blog about in public.

November 2008

Aside from a really rotten start to the month, Julia and I spend an epic holiday adventure in Thailand visiting Phuket, Phi Phi and Bangkok – we unwittingly escape exactly 1 day before the polical situation erupts and Bangkok airports are closed down, stranding thousands of tourists.

December 2008

The month starts off with World AIDS Day and the year closes with a feastive season that makes up for an otherwise reasonably sedate year with several parties of note. Using up the last of 2008′s leave, I geek it up a little when I use other people’s genius to get Windows XP to fully run inside Ubuntu.  I might never have to reboot into Windows again.