YOURSAY 'Coincidence? I think not. And what about vehicles moving around the city with jamming equipment?'

Gov't denies jamming cellphones during Bersih 3.0

your say MrM: Handphone service was intermittent before that but suddenly just before 3pm, just before the police attacked us, there was mass failure of mobile networks with people reportedly unable to send SMS or make calls even though the signal strength was at the maximum.

Coincidence? I think not.

Anak Malaysia: Sorry minister, you can't just deny it and get away so easily. I have seen photos of cellphone jamming equipment on top of vehicles moving around the city at the time of Bersih 3.0.

You have a lot more explanation to do than just a mere denial. My phone couldn't work at Lebuh Ampang, but when I got to Menara Maybank (barely 100 metres away), suddenly the phones could work again.

So, please stop lying. When you lie, you speak the devil's native tongue. I pray our leaders will start having a conscience and a fear of God before they attempt to fool the people they are supposed to serve.

Unspin: Minister, please provide an explanation for the picture of the four-wheel drive with industrial-grade jammers in this Malaysiakini report .

Also, please explain why there were convenient distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on Malaysiakini website during Bersih 3.0 and the Sarawak state election.

I would wager my last dollar that there will be another DDOS attack on Malaysiakini in the coming general election, courtesy of the Information Ministry.

Anwar Bijak: We want the telco operators to come out and explain to Malaysians whether their services were deliberately 'jammed'.

Truth to be told, I personally had problems getting mobile connections during Bersih 3.0. Somebody is not telling the truth.

Disgusted: I could not use my handphone to contact my friends who went together with me when we were separated at Jalan Tun Perak.

They too could not contact me. However, when I went out of that area at the end of Chinatown, I received calls from people outside the area. If our signals were not jammed then what else could it be?

Ntazetta: Each base station has its own capacity in the number of users it can handle at one time. Usually the base station never reaches its full capacity because it is very unlikely that in a small area, people would use their mobiles all at the same time.

As much as I'd like to blame the government for everything, this was not their doing. I've encountered another instance of this kind of network overload - during Jusco Card Member Day when everybody was making calls within Jusco to locate friends/call friends to ask opinions on purchases.

Telestai!: What the ministry said is probably true as anyone who understands how a cellular system works, will appreciate the demands on the transceivers given that many rally goers accessed broadband as well as voice communication.

Be that as it may, the rakyat has stopped trusting the government due to frequent lying by ministers. This happens when credibility is lost - once lost, forever gone.

Odin: You are, to use Malaysian English, 'bluffing'. It seems that not only cellular telephony was messed around with, but so was the Internet. At least one independent online news portal has had great difficulty in uploading its reports.

Opah: After Bersih 2.0, the health minister lied about not shooting tear gas into the Tung Shing hospital in spite of all the photographs showing otherwise.

Now this minister is lying even though there were tens of thousands of witnesses and plenty of photographs of the jamming devices. There was one on the corner of Jalan Tun Perak and Medan Pasar.

Anonymous #31081882: I participated in Bersih 3.0. As much as I hate saying this, but in this case, I don't think the government jammed cellular signals. It was just a case of too many people trying to use cellular networks at the same time in a small area.

This kind of problem is not isolated to Malaysia but also in developed countries with excellent cellular infrastructure.

Anonymous #52720663: The silly government says not many people showed up for the rally. They now admit too many people showed up and, hence, caused the mobile telecomunication system to break down.

I guess we are still saddled with third world equipment that cannot deal with crowds.

SAD: I used to go to the Batu Caves during Thaipusam, but I could still use my telco line. Don't tell me Bersih was supported by even more people than that.

Quigonbond: It will be useful if the ministry tell Malaysians how many people it takes for the lines to be jammed.

Given government projection that merely 30,000-50,000 turned up, it's a surprise so many service providers can still provide inadequate service. It is not as if 250,000 turned up.

Anonymous_3f6d: Too many people? Rais said 22,270 people were at Bersih 3.0 - which should be less than the usual shopping crowd in Kuala Lumpur, right?

 

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