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Malaysians
have been asked to develop
their websites on local web
hosts instead of foreign counterparts,
to avoid having to face
disruption in Internet service
such as the one experienced by
many after the Dec 26 earthquake
in Taiwan.
Internet service provider
(ISP) Telekom Malaysia (TM)
business chief executive officer
Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said
the recent incident showed a
considerable number of local
sites were not hosted locally –
and were thus affected by the
disruption in international
telecommunication links.
“Malaysia has more than sufficient
capacity for web hosting
services and it would be timely
for us to collectively have a
change of mindset with regard
to our local capabilities in hosting
Malaysian content.
“I would like to encourage all
organisations and individuals to
host their websites locally not
only to leverage on the country’s
strong infrastructure for hosting
services but also to be more
self-reliant to ensure that disasters
like this do not have such
impact on them,” he said in a
Jan 5 statement.
Zamzamzairani said this
would be in line with the purpose
of the Malaysia Internet
Exchange to improve domestic
traffic and keep it within the
country.
The earthquake had damaged
international telecommunication
cables, thus cutting off
telecommunication services
between Malaysia and Taiwan,
South Korea, Japan and the US.
In the statement,TM said the
7.1-magnitude earthquake off
Taiwan resulted in a major
breakdown of five cable systems,
including Asia Pacific
Cable Network 2 (APCN2).
“All these cable systems
route the country’s Internet traffic,
with the bulk of it going
through APCN2 (submarine
cable fault between Shantou,
China and Tanshui, Taiwan and
between Lantau, Hongkong and
Chongming, China which route
the main bulk of Internet traffic
for Malaysia),” it said.
Traffic had to be re-routed
through Europe and China to the
United States,with the assistance
of TM partner carriers in Europe,
China, Hongkong and Japan.
Clive Chen, 23, a freelance
web developer for businesses
and individuals, said most of his
local clients preferred Malaysian
web hosts such as the Malaysian
Institute of Microelectronic
Systems (Mimos).
“This is because local web
hosts are ‘closer’ and hence,
faster (bandwidth) whereas if
they choose host websites from
say, the US,they would have to go
through a ‘further’ distance which
inevitably has more activity and
traffic in between,” he said.
Even so, there are others like
blogger Kenny Sia, 24, who
opted for international hosting.
“Cost is a major factor for
sure, when it comes to choosing
a web host. International
ones give you five times more
storage space and bandwidth
for the same price,” he said.
Privacy is another concern.
While both local and international
web hosts can hack into
the e-mail accounts of their customers,
it is less likely to happen
on an international web host,
Sia said.
“As for the fear of services
being disrupted during
instances such as earthquakes,
I don’t think it’s a problem for
me. After all, earthquakes don’t
happen everyday,” he added.
Sia spends US$5 (RM17.74) a
month for 55GB of storage
space despite the two-second
ping (response) time. Local
hosts can be slightly faster – 33-
millisecond ping time – but usually
at a higher price.
Local ISP TM offers a promotional
price of RM988 a year for
1,000MB of space.
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