asiaflux.com Blog

Lifehacker Faceoff: Mozy vs Carbonite

Administrator — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:01:24 +0000

Lifehacker recently did a faceoff between the 2 top Online Backup services Mozy and Carbonite. Take a look here.

Lifehacker Faceoff
Online Backup Final Round, Mozy vs. Carbonite

carbonitevsmozy.png
Our recent poll on online backup shows that most Lifehacker readers prefer Mozy to back up their data in the cloud. However, there were lots of shout-outs for flat-priced, unlimited storage Carbonite in the comments. Mozy offers 2GB of storage indefinitely for free and works for Mac and PC; Carbonite offers a 15 day trial and charges an affordable $50 a year for unlimited storage.

Most of my critical stuff is stored on a Mac, so my main beef with Mozy is its Mac client’s inability to schedule regular backups. Carbonite’s Mac client remains to be seen (but is in the works). On PC’s, both can do automatic scheduled backups. Mozy offers that sweet free 2GB indefinitely and Carbonite’s trial is limited to 15 days, but Carbonite’s yearly fee is very reasonable for unlimited storage space. (A Carbonite rep tells me that they don’t offer a free couple of gigs like Mozy because they don’t want their paying users to have to fund the freeloaders. Makes sense.) Mozy’s unlimited storage option will set you back $4.95 a month, just 10 bucks more than Carbonite.

So which one are you using or most likely to use?

Mozy or Carbonite?

Mozy

Carbonite

Skip To Current Results

If radio buttons don’t quite get across your thoughts on the subject, the comments await.

The Bottled Water Indulgence

Administrator — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:52:30 +0000

It’s been a while since I last posted. My apologies for that. And what spurred me to post again? Read on.

I read an article a week ago in Fast Company and it really jolted me. Never in my life did I ever imagine that something as innoculous as the bottled mineral water could be so pervasive, massive in its economic impact and potentially detrimental to our environment.

It was in the July/August 2007 issue of Fast Company and the article was written by Charles Fishman titled Message In A Bottle. In his article, Charles did an in depth study into the business of bottled water, its economics, how the water got into the bottle and the bottle reaches us, the consumers. How certain brands of bottled water became a fad or status symbol, the changing attitudes towards bottled water and the way modern consumers take it for granted. Consider the fact from the articles:

- Americans spend US$15 billion in 2006 on bottled water, in 2007, it will be US$16 billion
- the largest bottled water factory in the States is in Maine and it produces 24 million bottles every 5 days
- the country of Fiji produces 1 million bottles a day, yet more than 50% of Fijians do not have reliable drinking water
- in 1976, the average per capita consumption of bottled water was 1.6 gallons. In 2006, it wasd 28.3 gallons
- the top four highest consumption of bottled water are USA, Brazil, China and Mexico
- yet, the USA has practically universally available safe drinking tap water
- typically 50% of the price you pay goes to the retailer, about 30% to the distributor and transportation, 10-12% for the cost of the water + the plastic and cap and less than 10% profit for the manufacturer
- for every 1 litre of San Pellegrino glass bottle you buy, 2 litres are used up on washing it
- Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Dasani bottled water all come from tap water. Already clean, perfectly safe to drink tap water that is treated through reverse-osmosis filtration process that is energy consuming
- Americans used 50 billion plastic water bottles in 2006, an average of 167 for each person
- these polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are only partly recycled. Which means that 38 billion water bottles are dumped into landfills in the US alone each year

Water has reached the point where it becomes a convenience. We just pick up a 24 pack at the petrol station or super. Buy a bottle from the 7-11 on the way home from the gym. It piles up half finished on the table or the back seat of the car, eventually thoughtlessly thrown away.

Imagine the amount of energy spent producing the hundreds of billions of PET bottles a year, transporting it, cooling it in refrigerators etc.

Read the full article here

As the author finished off in his work, you might never look at bottled water the same way again.

New High Performance Wireless Adapter from hField!

Administrator — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 07:02:24 +0000

hField Technologies, a Pennsylvania based company has developed the Wi-Fire, a compact high-performance USB WiFi Adapter for both Windows XP and Macintosh.

It’s just another boring WLAN adapter, you might think. BUT this baby is different! It has a range of 300+ metres compared with most external wireless USB adapter of 30-80 metres. Most onboard wireless LAN cards built into laptops have even poorer range.

We did a test of the Wi-Fire and were amazed at its performance. For example, in our office block, we typically can pick up about 5 APs most of the time with poor or limited connection quality. After installing and booting up the Wi-Fire, we could see more than 20 APs operating in our block and a couple of others emanating from the block next to ours which is more than 150 metres away. And these were mostly in the 2-4 bar signal strength range.

Our engineer is now like a man on a mission, determined to see how far he can go with the Wi-Fire. He is convinced that with (LOS) Line Of Sight, he can connect more than 350 or 400 metres to a regular off-the-shelf Linksys 802.11b/g AP. We’ll report back when he has finished his testing and regained some sanity.

With an integrated high gain directional antenna and extremely strong receive sensitivity, the Wi-Fire gives mobile computer users the freedom to connect to WiFi networks when they want, where they want. Users benefit from the increased mobility and greater range with faster speeds as compared to normal built-in or external WLAN cards or adapters.

Wi-Fire provides interoperability with any 802.11 b/g access point and multiplies the effectiveness of wireless networks allowing users to connect to a WiFi network from up to 300+ metres, more than three times the range of generic or branded 802.11 cards / adapters, at significantly higher speeds, and even in locations where no wireless signal could be detected previously.

hField has garnered massive amounts of reviews. You can see them (almost 60) here

We have signed a deal with hField to distribute the Wi-Fire in Singapore, Malaysia and some of the other ASEAN neighbours.

As a special introductory offer, we are selling them at US$79 ex-stock for Singapore (we absorb the freight charges into Singapore, GST and all other taxes). You can contact us at enquiry@asiaflux.com for details.

Carbonite Named Top Private Company Award Winner by AlwaysOn

Administrator — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:47:46 +0000

AlwaysOn earlier this month voted Carbonite as one of the top private companies for 2007 from a list of more than 1000 nominations. You can read more at

This is the fifth in the annual elite AO100 list since 2003 and nominations are submitted by investor bankers, venture capitalists and industry experts.

This only convinces us even more of the great value and service that Carbonite is providing to consumers and small businesses.

I have a friend who was initially skeptical about how useful Carbonite is. He was convinced that external Hard Disk Drives were the way to go especially with their low $ per gigabyte. However, 3 weeks ago, he grudgingly downloaded the trial and had his files backed up to Carbonite. Just 2 days ago, his entire laptop crashed and he discovered to his horror that he had forgotten to backup his files to it for a good 6 weeks. On top of that, while trying to retrieve whatever he had backed up to his Iomega, it crashed too.

He went to Carbonite and managed to retrieve everything within a few hours. To say that he is now a convert is understating it. He instructed his admin manager to purchase Carbonite for all his staff.

Nothing like a real life story to send the message across, huh?

A full list of the finalists in the AO100 can be found at alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/15899

Hardware Magazine Ranks Carbonite Tops in Online Backup Shootout

Administrator — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 12:42:02 +0000

In the July edition of Hardware Magazine, Carbonite has been reviewed tops in a shootout with other prominent Backup providers like SOS, Bullguard and Mozy. You can see more at http://www.asiaflux.com/files/carbonite_folder/Carbonite_Reviews.html

Both Carbonite and Mozy were ranked highly amongst the four contenders in terms of ease of use and performance but Carbonite had the added strengths of fast restoration as well as comprehensive support.

Hardware Magazine also put in their 2 cents worth of inputs on the subject of backing up our valuable data. They felt that existing backup methods like CDs and DVDs or portable Hard drives are not entirely risk free and for scenarios like disasters, it might be best to use remote backup tools like Online Backup services to reduce the risk of total loss of our valuable data.

To celebrate this, we at AsiaFlux Networks would like to extend our offer to all.

Please go to www.carbonite.com.sg and use the offer code: asiaflux to get a 30 day free trial of Carbonite Online Backup. After the trial, if you like the service, use the same Offer Code: asiaflux and you will get 2 extra free months with your annual subscription.

Cool & Feature Packed Nokia Communicator

Administrator — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:21:58 +0000

I have used the Communicator 9500 and am still using the 9300i. I have to say that after waiting for so long, the latest model in the Communicator series is worth the wait. The E90 is slightly larger in form than the 9300i but still petite against the gargantuan 9500 but it has features aplenty. In fact, almost everything you could have in your Xmas wish list; and more.

- Quad band GSM
- 128Mb RAM on board
- 136Mb on board memory capacity and expandable to 2Gb through micro-SD card
- 16 million colors inner full-sized screen and also 16 million color outer small screen
- user-friendly inner and outer toggle key (much better than the ridiculous joy button on the 9300i)
- 3G, 3.5G, 802.11g, Bluetooth and infrared
- USB2.0
- full QWERTY keyboard
- 2.5mm audio jack, stereo speakers, FM radio
- GPS
- 3.2 mega-pixel outer camera with video, Secondary inner camera for video calls
- Finally, vibration capability!

It runs S60 on Symbian 9.2 which contributes tremendously to improved application compared with its older siblings as well as better User interface and easier add-on enhancements.

The E90 will switch seamlessly any applications you are running between open and closed clamshell modes. That is a huge plus which was irritatingly not available in older Communicator models.

Cannot wait to get my hands one one. They are currently available in some retail outlets in Singapore and I think the retail price without a service plan is S$1488. Very stiff! But worth it. I feel. Or maybe I should wait half a year more and it should be a couple of hundred dollars cheaper. But then Nokia’s pricing for its business phone models have always been at the stratospheric range. Do not know if I can wait that long.

Carbonite Appoints AsiaFlux as Singapore Distributor

Administrator — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 14:09:39 +0000

The leading Online Backup Service, Carbonite has officially appointed AsiaFlux Networks as its Singapore Distributor with immediate effect. Over here at AsiaFlux, we are excited to be associated with Carbonite.

We have signed up Challenger IT Stores and they are now stocking Carbonite boxed sets in all their 8 stores. Currently, Carbonite is the only purely Online Backup Service available in boxed sets in Singapore.

I would like to take a moment to clarify that Tivoli Backup Service which is also available in many IT stores is not an Online Backup Service, but rather a Backup Management Software. You need to have an external backup media like a HDD or multi-GigaByte flash drive for it to back up files to. Looking at the specifications and features of Tivoli, it is not too bad a software but unlike Online Backup, there is always the danger of losing your external storage media and all your precious files through theft or damage, accidents or fire.

On a related matter, Hardware Magazine will be doing a shootout test of 4 Online Backup Services; Carbonite, Mozy, SOS and Bullguard. Look out for it in this month’s issue. Do take the time to read the review. You will find it interesting.

In the next couple of months, you will see more reviews of Carbonite done in the various papaers and magazines. Seems that more and more people are starting to recognise the value of Online Backup and the service it offers in protecting valuable personal data.

If you think about it, Online Backup Service is like what Anti-Virus software was a few years back. People either did not recognise its value or they felt that it was not necessary and that events like data loss through storage media damage, theft, accidents etc would never happen to them.

But the truth of the matter is that like what I stated in my previous post, hard disk failure happens more often then we think. And backing up regularly to an external HDD or flash drive is dependent on our remembering to do so. And the worst thing is that very frequently, many of us carry our HDD with us. If our laptop bag were to be stolen (750,000 notebooks are stolen every year worldwide), everything is gone!

On a celebratory note, we at AsiaFlux would like to extend an offer to everyone in Singapore.

For a FREE 30 days trial, go to www.carbonite.com.sg and key in Offer Code: asiaflux

If after the trial period is over and you find Carbonite good, use the same Offer Code: asiaflux and you will get an additional 2 months FREE with your paid yearly subscription.

Why take the risk when you can have peace of mind for less than the price of a McDonalds Value Meal a month.

CommunicAsia 2007 was a Blast!

Administrator — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:17:50 +0000

I just spent 4 whole days at the show and I must say that things certainly seem to be looking up for the Communications industry of Asia. The whole event was flooded with Indians, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Indonesians and every Asian nationality you could think of (one conspicuous absence were the Thais, I hardly saw any). I have been attending and exhibiting at CommunicAsia for the past 12 years and I must say that this year’s event must rate as one of the most lively in terms of deals and potential deals being discussed.

The hot sector was networking and you could find scores of mobile wireless, Wimax, Wifi and Optical vendors spread amongst the halls. And they were filled with visitors too, busily enquiring and taking stock of the newest innovations on offer.

Motorola, Cisco and Juniper were strangely absent. And LG took the opportunity to hog the limelight with Korean hip-hop dancers (those guys were pretty amazing with their dancing) and stunning women to launch their LG Shine Mobile phone range. Their stand was HOT with 4 LG Shine phones given away daily in lucky draws. I saw some very executive types furiously scribbling away their details on reams of lucky draw coupons that they somehow managed to get hold of. Basically when the show was on every 2 hours or so, the entire area came to a standstill and became a concert hall.

The Singapore pavilion was out in force this year with more exhibitors than I have ever seen in years. They had everything from wireless control solutions to Callback mobile phones to huge LCD screens (86″ I think) to IP video surveillance etc.

On the first day, there was a long queue just to get the Visitor passes even for pre-registered visitors. Some attendees were complaining that they had to queue for more than half an hour just to get in.

As you can imagine, lunch time was a wait and wait affair; wait to get food, wait for an available table, wait for service. The smart ones either had their lunch before 11.30 or waited till after 3.00.

If this is a sign of the resurgence of the communications industry in Singapore, you better make plans for CommunicAsia 2008. You wouldn’t want to miss it!

Carbonite Online Backup

Administrator — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 15:47:47 +0000

AsiaFlux Networks has just secured a distributorship for Carbonite Online Backup in Singapore. Star War fans will remember Carbonite as the stuff that Hans Solo was deep frozen in. Carbonite similarly deep freezes your data in its storage servers until you restore or retrieve it.

What are the advantages of Carbonite?

Carbonite™ is an Internet-based Backup for Everyone™.

It is the simplest, least-expensive, and first service to make secure, offsite backup affordable and effortless for the average consumer. Installation takes less than two minutes and Online PCBackup requires little or no ongoing user involvement a truly set and forget service. Integrated with Microsoft Windows® Explorer, Carbonite does not require users to learn a new interface.

Data Backup Features

Unlimited storage capacity
Two-click Setup – nothing new to learn
· Automatically finds all your data files photos, documents, music, emails, everything

· Instantly detects and backs up changed files

· Set and forget – your backup is automatically updated with new and changed files

· Always on whenever and wherever you’re connected to the Internet

· Never slows down your computer or Internet connection

· Strong encryption – all files are encrypted with 1024 bit Blowfish key before they ever leave your computer

· Exclude files you don t want to back up

· Backs up 2GB per day over a typical high-speed (DSL or Cable) Internet connection

· Restore 10-15GB per day

Do you know………?
- 75,000 laptops are stolen annually worldwide

- 63% of people backup less than once a month

- 23% never backup at all

- 79% of computer users rate their data as ‘valuable’

- 40% rate it as ‘priceless’

“Your DATA is your LIFE! Protect it!”

There are four important considerations when deciding how to backup your data:

Time & Hassle — If you have to think about backups, you probably won’t ever get around to doing them. That’s why only 2% of home PCs are backed up regularly. With Carbonite, you download our software, set and forget.

Cost — If you backed up your PC daily to CDs, you’d go through hundreds of dollars worth of CDs a year. Outboard hard drives cost $150 and up. Traditional online backup services cost at least $100 per year and offer only limited capacity. Carbonite offers unlimited storage capacity for just a few dollars per month.

Peace of Mind — Are all of the data you care about protected from theft, fire, flood, and other natural disasters? With Carbonite, you know for sure that data you’ve lost can be recovered. And because Carbonite is always on, continuously detecting new data and changes to existing files on your PC, you never have to worry.

Security — With Carbonite, nothing leaves your PC unless it is encrypted twice – once with your encryption key and again as it travels over the Internet. When you register, you create a user ID and password and only you will be able to unlock the encrypted files stored by Carbonite. You can also rest assured that Carbonite won’t share any information about you or your data with advertisers or other third parties.

A note on CD backups: some people wrongly assume that backing up files to CD offers a permanent solution. However, the nature of chemicals used to manufacture recordable CDs gives them much shorter lifespan than store-bought albums. In fact, even recordable CDs that are stored in dark, temperature-controlled rooms usually won’t last longer than a few years!

Anyone interested in trying out Carbonite can go to www.carbonite.com.sg.

Key in the Offer Code: ehub and you can get a 30 days free trial.

IPv6 Forum Invitation

Administrator — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:37:21 +0000

The IPv6 Forum Singapore Chapter is inviting any individuals, corporations, large or small to be members of the Forum.

This is a non-profit organisation with the mission of creating awareness of IPv6 in Singapore, setting out Best Practices Guidelines and possibly also Certification of IPv6 Readiness.

Anyone with interest can contact the Forum at enquiry@ipv6forum.sg

Joost! Free TV over the Internet

Administrator — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:16:01 +0000

Joost has been rocking the internet world with its free beta service of high quality, TV programs over the internet. No need for TV cards or any special receivers. Just an invitation, broadband and your PC. The ex-founders of Skype (who cashed in for US$2.6 billion to eBay) have seemingly a winner up their sleeves again.

I got an invite 10 days ago, downloaded the beta drivers (only 10.5Mbs), fired it up, and I must say that I am quite impressed.

The programs are not fantastic, though I loved 5th Gear, the Car Review program, but give them time and I am sure that they might even make some of us consider giving up our over-priced Starhub subscriptions. Now, if only they could wrangle in EPL. That would be a real kicker and sleepless nights for all Cable executives out there.

Picture quality is not HD quality but definitely acceptable, it has a very friendly user interface menu which is quick and responsive. I have 3Mbps at home and the video stream is ok but for those of you with higher speeds, you will definitely enjoy the experience more. Needless to say, 1Mbps or less is jerky and sometimes irritating but that is the price you pay.

Examples of programs include Sports Illustrated Swimsuit On Demand, Fight Network, National Geographic, 5th Gear, MTV, The Soccer Channel, Bugeye Music and Alliance Atlantis Sci-Fi.

There are rumors circulating on the net that Joost is in negotiations with Warner Music, CNN, BBC, Indy Car, NBA, WWE, ESPN etc for additional content.

IPv6 Forum – Singapore Chapter

Administrator — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:34:23 +0000

IPv6 Forum is a non-profit organisation comprising internet vendors, subject matter experts, research and education networks, with the mission of advocating IPv6 by improving technology, market, and industry awareness of IPv6. I have news that the IPv6 Forum – Singapore Chapter is in the works of being setup.

Details like website, membership, mission and possibly IPv6 Certification are being worked out.

In fact, anyone interested in either knowing more or joining as a member can leave either their contact details with me or go to the Go6.Net booth 6B4-09 at CommunicAsia 2007 to find out more.

Lok Appliances Selected by Qmax

Administrator — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:09:13 +0000

San Jose, CA – Lok Technology announced today that QMax Communications Pte Ltd is deploying its wireless fidelity (WiFi) network management and control appliances to service the west sector of Singapore as part of the government sponsored Wireless@SG initiative.

Wireless@SG is part of the Infocomm Development Authority’s (IDA) masterplan, Intelligent Nation 2015 (iN2015) that will transform the country into an “intelligent nation” and connect businesses, households, government, and roaming users by providing broadband Internet access across the island. For the first three years QMax provides “basic” free Internet access with a minimum of 512 Kbps bandwidth available for users accessing the internet from one of the over 2000 hotspots being deployed in their “West Sector”. QMax subscribers requiring bandwidth above 512 Kbps or other premium access services will be able to sign up for a variety of fee based plans in the QMax coverage area. Once connected, users are able to access all normal Internet-based services (e.g. online gaming, web surfing, instant messaging, VoIP and email).

Providing wireless Internet access requires WiFi radios that deliver to and receive signals from laptops and other IP enabled devices like computers, PDAs, and WiFi phones, be installed in each hotspot or hotzone. Once connected data is passed between the radios and the Internet through LokBox appliances that authenticate subscribers and delivers the right amount of bandwidth to each user depending on their access plan (premium or free). The LokBox also enables location-based advertising to be delivered to subscribers by businesses in or close to the hotspot, or subject sensitive advertising based on user search criteria. Finally the LokBox aggregates bandwidth and creates a load balanced, highly available connection from the QMax Data Centre to the Internet

“The QMax / Lok Technology collaboration is a natural fit. QMax’s business experience, knowledge of Internet service delivery, and commitment to excellence united with Lok’s expertise in management and control of revenue generating networking (RGN) is a powerful combination enabling high-quality Wi-Fi services for our customers,” said Alex Tan, QMax Director. “We selected the LokBox appliances to manage the network because of the highly integrated nature of their appliance, incredible breadth of applications and their reputation for delivering high-speed, high quality products to our specific industry.

Traditionally hotspot service providers and ISP’s build extensive computing, networking and storage infrastructures to deliver Internet services. This requires large capital expenditures, expensive and time consuming integration and legions of technical support personnel to install and support this data center equipment. This drives up the cost of service delivery and makes providing quality service extremely expensive. With the LokBox this mass of disparate equipment is reduced to one appliance to purchase, install, integrate, operate and support.

With LokBox appliances performing such a critical function QMax is able to increase network performance and reduce costs and complexities, improving both the customer experience and the QMax bottom line. Utilizing LokBox technology QMax can centrally manage and both its indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi hotspots and hotzones ensuring a high speed and highly available user experience.

“We are absolutely delighted to be part of the Wireless@SG initiative and are especially proud of our relationship with QMax. Their knowledge of the ISP market and their existing service capability made our job easy “, said Keenan Klinger, President of Lok Technology. QMax is a very demanding partner and one that values their customers above all else. This project is very exciting, and we are very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the iN2015 masterplan.

The LokBox shared memory architecture and out-of-order packet-processing technology are unique in the industry and are essential to effectively running RGNs. Just as disparate routers, firewalls, intrusion protection systems, authentication servers, web cache devices, link bonding switches and bandwidth priority and allocation systems serve as traffic-management systems for wired networks, the LokBox appliances use sophisticated mathematical algorithms and integration techniques to combine these functions into a single appliance for wireless networks. The quality of a Wi-Fi network depends on to the ability of the equipment to aggregate, route and validated traffic intelligently, efficiently and dependably – with as few moving parts as possible.

About Lok Technology, Inc.

Lok Technology is a leading provider of gateways and centralized-authentication appliances designed to manage, provision, and protect revenue-generating networks. LokBox appliances offer customer networks of all sizes a single integrated network-provisioning appliance for cost-effective and scalable network deployments. Lok’s patent-pending shared-memory and out-of-order packet-processing technology are unique in the industry, allowing an unprecedented number of concurrent users to be categorized based upon policy and role-authentication. All of the functions and features required in today’s revenue-generating policy-enforcement networks are bundled in one LokBox appliance. Headquartered in San Jose, CA, Lok Technology has a worldwide sales and technical support organization, along with a global network of resellers and integrators. AsiaFlux Networks is a major reseller of Lok Technology products in Asia. Learn more at www.asiaflux.com

About QMax Communications Pte Ltd

QMax is a broadband infrastructure and technology company offering “Anytime, Anywhere” high speed wireless broadband connectivity. In March 2006, it became the first service provider in Singapore to successfully deploy and commercialize a wireless broadband service using the WBA spectrum (or commonly known as WIMAX). With strong support from its major shareholder, Creative Technology Ltd, a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products and portable media players, QMax is poised to be one of a new breed of broadband infrastructure and technology companies offering consumers a chance to wirelessly access digital media for communication, entertainment and learning at high speed.

Virtual Laser Keyboard

Administrator — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 12:05:17 +0000

I found this while I was trawling the net for new gadgets and I was blown by the utter coolness of this. Imagine you were in Starbucks, you pull out your SmartPhone or PDA, set up the Zippo-sized keyboard projecter next to it and you proceed to type out on the keyboard images projected on to the table-top or work surface; complete with keyboard click sounds! Sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. But it really works! This device projects a laser beam to generate a full-sized keyboard image on a flat surface and works with most Blackberry models, PDAs and Tablets.

Only drawback is the price. About US$180 excluding shipping. If you wish to check out or have loads of spare cash, go to http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/

NETs has us All in their Net

Administrator — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:44:43 +0000

For the past 2 days, I read the news on the Nets debacle with a growing sense of disbelief. Nets has always been like a national institution in Singapore, used by almost all and sundry for its convenient cashless system. To raise its rates by 300%, and with such short notice, smacks of pure greed arising from its monopolistic position.

CEO Poh Mui Hoon’s rationale is flawed. The 3 shareholder banks themselves account for a big percentage of the debit cards issued. Yes they do earn the banks more money, but the overall transaction volume of these debit cards is peanuts compared with the transactional volume of Nets. Correct me if I am wrong but doesn’t bigger volume warrant better rates or prices. In my many years of negotiations for my employers, I have not come across a case which goes against this principle.

I have no issue with Nets being profit oriented. That is what the world is. But such avarice boggles the mind. Granted that it might be time for Nets to raise its rates in line with changes in the business environment, primarily from its competition. But no matter what, Nets will always be the leader in cashless payment (provided they maintain sane merchant rates). There is no necessity to rocket its rates to be in line with those for debit cards. To do so with such a big merchant and terminal penetration rate is to flex its muscles and force its way.

CASE is right to register a complaint to the Competition Commission, but I fear that eventually Nets will have its way, albeit probably with a slight reduction in its proposed rate increase, so as to show some compassion for the consumers who will probably find the additional costs passed to them.

I for one will not use Nets at all for my purchases unless absolutely necessary. Cash is still king when it comes to a situation like this. If enough people feel the same way and act on it, the dropping transactional volume will show such monopolistic entities that sometimes, silly actions might trap yourself in your own net.