Tag Archives: ytl communications

06/27/11

Yes 4G AppleUSBCDCECMData error/issue Mac OS X

If you are using a recent Apple with a default install of Mac OS X version 10.6.6 or higher, and have problems getting OS X to detect your Yes 4G Go USB dongle despite plugging/unplugging your dongle 5000 times – this may be of some use.

1) Open Terminal
2) Remove your USB dongle
3) Insert your USB dongle
4) In Terminal, type “sudo dmesg” (enter your password when asked)
5) Try to spot this in the jumbled mess of text

AppleUSBCDCECMData: start – Find CDC driver for ECM data interface failed

If you see this, fear not, you just need a newer version of the Yes 4G connect drivers for OS X 10.6.6 and above – you can grab them here.

Note: This “fix” is only for OS X devices that install from a 10.6.6 DVD by DEFAULT. In general, this would mean early 2011 (or later) Macbook Air/Pro. Installing this updated driver probably won’t kill your machine if you are using an earlier version of OS X, but it probably won’t fix your problem either. I hold no responsibility for your OS X device going up in flames and/or growing a pair of legs and running off into the sunset.

UPDATE: The latest drivers from the YTL site “should” work fine. There is no reason to use the drivers listed on this page anymore (unless you like using outdated drivers).

04/11/11

Yes 4G & Best Effort – Convenient Coincidence or Shrewd Master Plan?

Here’s some food for thought at 5:42AM on a random Monday morning.

Our good folk in MCMC/SKMM have been so kind to “protect” us recently with the “requirement” that Internet connections sold should be able to reach 80% of the subscribed line speed. What this means to the random subscriber is that if he/she signed up for a 10Mbps Internet connection from Telekom Malaysia, in theory, TM MUST provide him/her with at least 8Mbps (80% of 10Mbps) throughput on average. TM just increases priority to popular speedtest sites and hosts their own speedtest server on their own network to work around this “recommendation” from MCMC… but that’s besides the point!!! Moving on!!!

Now, YTL’s Yes 4G is sold with no actual subscribed bandwidth. So, how does this 80% requirement work with Yes 4G? Did the guys at YTL sit down, think up a storm, and come up with this absolutely brilliant idea… or was it absolute pure random coincidence that they are conveniently in the Twilight Zone that isn’t quite within the broad umbrella covered by one of the newest MCMC/SKMM “requirements”?

01/1/11

2010 in Malaysia according to biatch0

So, yet another New Year is upon us… big whoopdedoo!!! Here’s a quick round up of what happened in 2010 according to the Gospel of biatch0.

Telekom Malaysia (TM) announces UniFi – The FIRST Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) solution in Malaysia. Obviously, it isn’t so cool when you take into consideration that no other ISP could possibly do this in Malaysia even if they wanted to; thanks Telekom Malaysia for having the monopoly to the Malaysian last-mile. Also announced at the same time, TM announces Fair Usage Policies and Quotas for UniFi that are more suited to wireless ISPs; 60GB, 90GB, 120GB for 5Mbps, 10Mbps, and 20Mbps respectively. Huge uproar in the general public ensues and they “temporarily” remove quotas saying that they were “listening” to their customers feedback thus generating “some” positive press for them. Well, guess what, the bloodsuckers at TM have obviously “listened” since the quota system is due to be implemented this year with no changes to the data caps.

Obviously, copper couldn’t provide these speeds which is why TM (and the Malaysian government who so graciously added RM2.4 billion give or take) had to invest in fibre. Oh wait, look at this interesting bit of information, ADSL2 which works over copper goes up to 24Mbps!!! Strange, now why would TM and the Malaysian government spend billions of taxpayer dollars to implement something that could be done over existing infrastructure? IT OBVIOUSLY COULD HAVE NO RELATION TO THE AWESOME BENTLEY AND MERCEDES BENZ THOSE TM AND GOVERNMENT GUYS ARE DRIVING AROUND.

Telekom Malaysia (TM) UniFi is rooted – Numerous security flaws in the wireless routers supplied by TM to consumers are found; interestingly, some are thanks to the awesome technical prowess of TM technicians. Team SexyKambingz shows proof of concept for various interesting things, and are called in to provide input on security. Now obviously since Team SexyKambingz are Malaysian, they should be so incredibly thankful to TM for providing them with INCREDIBLE Internet all these years at UNBELIEVABLE prices and as such should provide any and all information they have to TM gratis. Unfortunately for TM, Team SexyKambingz are a bunch of people who for some reason think TM are the bloodsucking offspring of Satan himself and REFUSED to provide free security services to TM. Pfft… the gall of these people!!! We should be so thankful to TM for providing us awesome Internet all these years that we are giving up our first and second born to them!!! (In case some packets are lost in transmission, insert the <sarcasm></sarcasm> tag liberally in this post)

Telekom Malaysia (TM) holds meeting with highly technical customers because they deeply value our feedback – Due to the previous issue of UniFi security in combination with the widespread growing hatred the Malaysian public harbor for TM (without basis might I add *COUGH*); TM chose to hold a meeting to see what the community had to say about various issues such as their Fair Usage Policy, Quotas, and security. TM essentially came up with a bunch of random numbers that defied the laws of physics as we know them and used those numbers as justification for incredibly fair quotas!!! I mean a 60GB cap for a 5Mbps connection is really fair when you take into consideration a 1.5Mbps connection could do about 500GB a month easily. Right? Right? Essentially, what TM was saying at this meeting was that they are unable to cope with the bandwidth demands of their customers. Surprisingly, this MAY occur when you have close to a 100 to 1 contention ratio (I’m pulling this number out of my ass but won’t be surprised if it’s actually close to what TM is really doing). TM also made it very clear that their earlier stunt of removing the quota was a publicity stunt to avoid their beautiful building being burned down by the Malaysian general public – because it’s pretty clear they STILL want to implement the exact same quotas they originally planned. Listening my ass… I mean my ass literally does as much listening as the guys at TM. Considering the number of years that TM has been sucking money out of every single Internet user in Malaysia (save a few fortunate souls who live in TIMEdotCom or other wired ISP coverage areas) they should very well be able to afford more bandwidth than Akamai and Google put together.

The Star reports that Telekom Malaysia DOES NOT have a monopoly on Malaysian Internet – Yes, this is true, also, I am next in line to be the Pope, I am actually the real person who founded Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo, and I am an immortal. Deputy Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Joseph Salang Gandum needs to start sharing whatever he’s been smoking because it sure seems like some good shit. TM are pretty much the sole reason the Internet in Malaysia is only comparable to places like Afghanistan or insert random war torn country here. Tell our well-informed Deputy Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Joseph Salang Gandum that when every ISP in Malaysia can provide service over public infrastructure that was conveniently “claimed” by TM 20 odd years ago, then I’ll believe that TM doesn’t have a monopoly. Until that day, TM and whoever thinks otherwise can shove whatever they think right up their No Entry exit.

YTL finally launches Yes 4G – These guys almost stole the limelight from TM with the awesome blossom that was their “launch”. They used the term 4G at their launch a week after the ITU announced the 4G standards (which Yes 4G did not meet) but fortunately caught a lucky break later when the ITU lowered the standards to cover the technology used by YTL. Free Internet was found by some people much to their glee, before the YTL website buckled under the load of a (reportedly) 300,000 hits per second DDoS, and team HITB foolishly (I say this in retrospect) provided YTL with consultation gratis to fix certain “issues”. Limited disclosure here for reasons which will remain withheld.

TIMEdotCom rebrands and releases their own fibre connection – TIMEdotCom is as far as I’m concerned the only REAL ISP in Malaysia. Buy a 2Mbps connection from them, and guess what, you get 2Mbps. An amazing concept I know!!! So anyway, these guys are unfortunately stuck with providing proper Internet to people in condominiums where TIME has an agreement with the building management or property developer. You will most likely never hear any complaints from their users about them – except possibly that they roll out new technologies fairly slowly. Well, that’s the price they have to pay for not sucking the blood of the Malaysian public for the past 20 years.

11/25/10

Yes is to 4G as UniFi is to HSBB

Something odd I thought of last night (this morning) as I decided to take another nap…

Yes has been receiving all kinds of flack lately with regards to their use of the term 4G. Personally, I did not approve of shady gimmicks like that… and as such, I saw fit to also demonize them for being Slim Shady. After all, ITU requirements are 100Mbps for mobile applications and 1Gbps for stationary… and the YTL Yes solution was nowhere near either of those requirements. Did they deserve to be burned at the stake? Quite possibly so… it was unfortunate for them that in combination with all the “issues” they faced during launch weekend that the burning at the stake turned into a (1) beaten up with sticks (2) thrown in with lions (3) saved inches before death (4) burning at the stake.

Now, I do feel sorry for the blokes over at YTL Yes, but make no mistake, I also feel they thoroughly deserved the backlash over the usage of the term 4G.

On the other hand, Telekom Malaysia… ah, my mortal enemy… the blood sucking leeches that have cause the Internet in Malaysia to be a steaming pile of horse crap overall… now, these guys have been MUCH more fortunate in a sense. They’ve labeled their newly unveiled UniFi service as HSBB (High Speed Broadband)… and as such, they are fortunate in the sense that there is no real definition or standard for what is to be considered as High Speed Broadband.

A quick Google search turns up almost no proper matches for what the definition of HSBB really is… mostly matches from circa 2000 that mentioned that High Speed Internet (referred to as Broadband then) was anything above 512Kbps. That exact same Google search also comes up with links to news reports of the High Speed Broadband that Google themselves plan to implement… 1Gbps of tasty bandwidth. Japan appears to also consider 1Gbps to be High Speed Broadband, while the blokes in Korea who are actually aliens from the future are apparently labeling 8Gbps connections as High Speed Broadband.

Returning to our beloved Malaysia, Telekom Malaysia’s UniFi has a maximum speed of 20Mbps… that will be capped… at 160GB (last I heard, 90GB for the 5Mbps, 120GB for the 10Mbps). I am 100% certain that Sweden had 26Mbps connections back in the late 90s, which means the damned Koreans probably had 26Mbps connections back in 1945 (yes, this is sarcasm in case your meter is broken).

Personally, I think Telekom Malaysia deserves just as much flack for calling UniFi HSBB as YTL received over the usage of the term 4G… if not more (It might just be my pure seething hatred for Telekom Malaysia talking, I’m sorry). What about you?