What IS interesting about the Chris McLaughlin, senior vice-president for external affairs at Inmarsat interview is that....
.....once the "ping data" (and the subsequent "arc") had been established and released to the Malaysian authorities, they (Inmarsat) began work to analyse their data.
When the boffins emerged, they had established that the direction of travel could be determined (by using the Doppler effect).
This data they also released to the Malaysians.
The next day (!) Inmarsat released this information to the AAIB.
It appears that only then did the Malaysians act (no doubt with a "guiding hand" from the AAIB) on this data.
The "Southern route".
I am not saying that the Malaysian authorities were "unwilling" to act, they were no doubt dealing with an unprecedented work load and data overload. But you'd think, "further data" from the private company that had given you the biggest lead you had gained thus far....would "kinda" be important.