Cambodia Reconnaissance

I am writing this blog at Cambodia right now, and this is my first trip to the country. I must admit that this is a real eye-opener!

Coming here on a two-day trip just to get a better feel of things, and I do feel that there are plenty of possibilities in Cambodia. Having just been stabilized politically roughly ten years back, the country is developing pretty well. Definitely there are plenty of vehicles around, and the commercial area is really starting to pick up.



When I first touch down at the airport (there is only one run-way at Siem Reap and Phnom Phenh International Airports), there was a lot of difference from what I am normally accustomed with. Firstly, language is really different from back at Singapore. Thankfully, we have a fantastic secretary that can speak Khmer, English as well as Chinese! Without her, we would probably not have been able to do much during our trip here! Secondly, the landscape here is comprised mostly of two-three storey buildings in Phnom Phenh, and stands in sharp contrast to the towering sky-scrapers in Singapore, Taiwan and China. Thirdly, there is definitely a lot less air-conditioned places than Singapore! Finally, I have found a place that is hotter than Singapore!!



And yet, there are plenty of business opportunities. For one, there is a healthy level of wealthy citizens in Phnom Phenh that has plenty of disposable income. And at the same time, there are very little places for them to spend their money! A place that is able to provide comfortable shopping facilities for high net worth consumers would be worth investing in Phnom Phenh. Also, the low landscape here makes it very easy for us to possibly deploy our wireless infrastructure in the country, and would cost only a fraction of our construction costs in Taichung! Mobile penetration is lower compared to developed cities, and would give alternative solutions like PHS or VOIP an easier entry into the voice market.

Emcom is going to take Cambodia by storm!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Business Expansion Plans

The past few weeks have been a real hectic time for our company! Not only have we successfully organized an exhibition in Taichung, where our vendors created booths to display our various future offerings in terms of our products and services, we have also made significant developments in our business divisions in Singapore.



EmCall, our voice services division, would be launching by the end of February 2007. Right now, we are in the process of setting up the web page for EmCall and watch out for our launch of our web page on the 9th of February! Offering high quality call-back services, our users can save up to 80% of what they would pay if they were to pay roaming charges from mobile operators! Within the year, we would also be launching P2P voice services as well as PC to mobile VOIP services in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan. EmCall would be a highly profitable business unit for our growing consumer market business.



Additionally, we have recently acquired the VOIP and ISP license in Cambodia. Being controlled licenses, there are currently only 3 VOIP licenses issued out to companies, and our registered company in Cambodia, Emcom Technologies (Cambodia) Ltd, is one of the companies having this license. In Cambodia, we expect to develop a highly profitable business in the country. As part of our plans to develop a strong foothold in the developing countries in the South-East Asia region, we are happy to be able to work with the Cambodian government in the development of the ISP and voice market in Cambodia. In the near future, we hope to be able to establish a wireless city infrastructural project in Cambodia, much like our current EM-Taichung project.

Till next time!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Corporate Profile

After working our designers to death, we have finally completed the corporate profile for our company. Also included are the DMs for our “EM-Taichung, Connected City”. After taking a look at the final printed copy, I must say that our designers have done a fantastic job! The profile would definitely be a great boost for the corporate image of our company.

Right now, our management team is in Taichung to prepare for the launch of a public relations event, where more than 900 visitors from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan would be in attendance. For the past few months, we have been really low key with regards to our publicity efforts in letting the world know more about our wireless city project, and we would be stepping up our publicity efforts strongly in the coming months. Our Taichung gala event would be the first of many large scale exhibition events that we would be conducting in the coming months. With better publicity, we would create immense excitement in the city of Taichung to let them know that Wireless Lifestyle is here to stay! At this moment, we have already created a stir in the West area of Taichung and many people have started receiving the signals from our base stations. However, we would not be launching our services just yet. We want to make sure that all technical issues are resolved before we start to accumulate a bigger subscriber base.

At the gala event, we are also honored to have been able to invite the presence of our strategic partners to set up exhibition booths on our infrastructural set-up, as well as booths for our products and services that we would be launching by 2008. Their presence in our event is a strong testament to their active involvement in our EM-Taichung project.

Time to get back to my work!! Till next time!!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Voice Services Pre-Launch!

Preparations for our Voice Services have been ongoing for some time, and we are happy to announce that we will starting our soft launch for our Voice services by the end of the month. Working with our local partner, C3Call Telecom Group, for the past few months, we are now confident of rolling out cost-effective, quality and simple-to-use alternative voice communications services for our consumers. As an important component of our overall strategy for our Consumer Services Division in Emcom, we look forward in extending our Voice services into Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Taiwan, and The Philippines by the end of the year.

Consumers can either choose to select a monthly subscription plan model, where they would be able to enjoy generous rebates and get free talk time, or they can choose to purchase a pre-paid card. Right now, we have come up with a variety of subscription plans targeted at different market segments, and would be lining up attractive prizes for our initial group of subscribers.

On the consumer end, there would be substantial cost savings of up to 80% of the current rates that they are paying. Additionally, with other features to be added on to our system in the next six months, subscribers would eventually be able to enjoy absolutely free phone calls to anyone that is also a subscriber! As our anchor product in our Consumer Services Division, we are confident that we would be able to generate substantial response to our voice services.

Till Next Time!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

The Internet as a Way of Life

Happy New Year to everyone!

Looking back over the past year, 2006 was certainly a memorable year for us. Not only have we begun on our EM-Taichung project, we have managed to successfully set-up a strong management team to bring our company forward. In the next few weeks, we would be having our company strategic planning for the New Year and some of the issues that we will be discussing include a review of our business model, HR recruitment, as well as international expansion. Looking ahead, we are happy with the amount that we have achieved in this short time frame and would be looking to press ahead further this year.

Just as 2006 was coming to an end, something happened that gave a glimpse of what might have happened without the Internet. The earthquakes that happened off the coast of Taiwan resulted in some damage of the undersea cables and severely affected the connectivity of Internet and telecommunications lines across the Asia Pacific region. Many businesses suffered tremendously during this period with banks, E-commerce companies, as well as telecommunications companies having to endure a torrid time and a dip in profits.

Coincidentally, during this time, I was away with my Chairman in Hong Kong and China. During the first few days, I was totally cut off and unable to access any Internet websites. Broadband speeds slowed to a crawl in the next few days and I was unable to receive or send out any emails! And, even my mobile phone communications were terrible. I was totally unable to make any contact with our partners in Taiwan and had to endure an information “black-out” just when we needed to make some urgent conference calls to Taiwan. In a way, I felt totally cut off from the rest of the world. Unable to reach my partners, staff and friends, my productivity dropped tremendously. Additionally, this “black-out” forced our plans to be delayed for at least a week. And I was left wondering, what would happen if the Internet died?

And in some places around the world, the Internet is practically non-existent. Or, Internet access might be extremely expensive. It is our vision to be able to bring high-speed, cost-effective, wireless broadband and telecommunications access to many developing countries across the world, starting with the Asia Pacific region. As such, the infrastructural development would allow citizens in these various countries to enter into an Information Age where the Internet and a Wireless Lifestyle becomes a Way of Life.

Carpe Diem!

Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology (Emcom)

Office Renovations

Officially today, we have received the keys to our new office space in HDB Hub and we would be starting our renovation works in the next few weeks to come. Clashing headlong with the festive season makes it a little complicated, but we hope to have our renovation completed by end of March 2007 and start the second quarter with a bang! So far, the design has looked fantastic, and as a team, we are really looking forward into moving to the new office.

With our increasing staff size, our office is starting to get a little cramped… Not to mention the fact that we are still currently sharing an office with another company, and things do get pretty complicated sometimes. At the same time, I believe that it is a good morale booster for our staff as well, and it acts as a powerful indicator that our company is indeed growing.

At the same time, it would make our internal communications simpler. Right now, because we are all pretty scattered around the office, we have to walk quite a fair bit just to talk to one another. The close proximity that we can have with one another will hopefully create an even better bond between all the staff at Emcom!

We have recently added another web designer to our team, and we are quickly accelerating our marketing efforts. To coincide with our move to our new office in Singapore, we will be launching a marketing campaign in April 2007. With a strong focus on customer satisfaction and needs, our campaign will be geared towards the end consumers. We strongly believe that we will be able to impact the way that people live, work and play. Wireless communications and lifestyle is here to stay!

Use IT! Love IT! Live IT!


Ignious Yong

Managing Director
Empire Communications Technology Pte Ltd (Emcom)

Marketing Plans

With the festive season coming up, all staff in Emcom are getting ready to give the company a great present… Finally, we will be getting our corporate profile and “M-Taichung, Connected City” profile! With the marketing profile scheduled for completion by the 20th of December 06, we hope to have our profile ready by the festive season. Here is a short teaser of what we would be coming out with!


Having been in contact with many vendors and partners, we would be tying down some important partnership agreements soon. Things are really beginning to look really exciting, and we will keep everyone posted on our progress!

That is all for today and Thank God Its Friday!