Folks, the wait for YTL’s 4G service will soon be over, especially for those outside the Klang Valley and up north.
In a private event at Lot 10 last week, well, not so private after all of us checked in to Foursquare and told the world where we were, YTL Communications introduced YES, the name of the new 4G service.
It was pretty much a see-and-no-touch event. We got to see the logo and pictures of the 4 new modem/mifi/dongle/phone devices that will be rolled out with the service on November 19. What was immediately or available soon after the event was a page where folks could register for their Yes IDs.
As I was tweeting and updating Facebook with what’s happening I was getting feedback from friends. The noise was mostly on the service being called 4G. Dhillon K. wrote on my wall “It’s not 4g please don’t call it that….” Some folks on twitter started getting personally, putting all 4G service providers into a basket called blasphemy.
And today I read Zach Epstein’s article on fake 4G. He summed it up well “it’s not lies, it’s just marketing.” Yes, it’s a marketing ploy. What better way to say “new and improved” than calling it 4G. For 4G’s sake when it really comes I think it should change to a new series eg. 4X or something. Then 5X, 6X etc. The G series is kinda screwed.
So it’s fake 4G but let’s be real. I asked on Twitter, ‘Are people not going to subscribe to fake 4G even though it’s many times faster than 3G but no where near 4G standards?’
Replies:
@bytebot (Colin Charles): i think people care about speed. I don’t think people care about marketing messages. Call it whatever, just provide throughput
@yoonkit: I’m awaiting the sharp discounts / promos they do.
I agree. Speed and price will be deciding factors for a lot of us and we won’t care whether it’s called 3G, 4G or 10G. Could ITU be blamed for dragging their feet on the 4G definition? Possibly. Whether it’s 11mbps or 100mbps, the great unwashed can only understand “faster than what is currently available” and faster by how much? Like, Star-Wars-Princess-Leia-holographic-projection kind of fast or YouTube-HD-videos kind of fast? And what’s it going to cost? Whoever can deliver the value proposition clearly will win.
All that Yes has to offer will be revealed this November 19. Wing Lee, CEO of YTL Comms said Yes4G will have no strings attached. I wonder if that means no contract and no bandwidth cap. High speed broadband does not work with 3GB or 5GB bandwidth caps. If unlimited data is an unsustainable model, I hope to see the limit pushed much higher than what’s in the market now. I’ll be comfortable with 20GB – 50GB. What do you hope to see? What would make you sit up and say “now this is a broadband service that makes sense, sign me up”?