Posts tagged Maxis

Mr. P: Abang, kami ada buat promosi Maxis Broadband sempena Deepavali ni.

Me: Ooo…ye ke? Tengok jap brochure tu.
Mr. P: Abang ada desktop/laptop?
Me: Ada…ada…
Mr. P handed me the brochure.
Me: Saya nak tanya sikit. Hari tu, saya ada tengok dalam website Celcom, dia kata walaupun pakej tu unlimited, tapi bandwidth limitnya Cuma 5 GB (gigabytes) per month.
Mr. P: Kami punya ni unlimited. Abang boleh download, surf sepanjang hari tanpa limit. Lagipun, dalam masa 7 hari, abang boleh return balik modem tersebut dan kami akan bayar balik kepada abang. Money back guarantee.
Me: Ooo…begitu ke…
Mr. P: Abang, mari la, isi borang, register…
Me: Tak pe lah, saya nak balik bincang dulu. Saya ni student lagi. Mana ada income. Bukan senang nak buat keputusan ni.

What? Unlimited broadband? Too good to be true.

First, lets see Celcom’s “wonderful” advertisement.

Stay Online Anytime, All The Time.
Whether you’re an Internet junkie or an entrepreneur on the go, there’s nothing better than having Internet connection without any disruptions. Stay online all the time with Celcom Broadband Advance. With the optimum speed of up to 3.6 Mbps, this plan is just what you need to make heavy downloading, surfing and browsing simply a breeze.

They say we can do heavy downloading by using this 3.6Mbps package.

Simply a breeze? It’s thunderstorm, not a breeze.

On that same page, click on the ‘conditions’ link and read it.

* The Broadband Advance Service offers speeds of up to 3.6Mbps. Okayyy…
* This service is only available as a postpaid service. Okayyy…
* This service is bound by Celcom’s Fair Usage Policy of 5GB a month. What??? (Refer ‘updates’ section at the bottom part of this post).

We have to realise that they actually offer the following packages:

Maxis Broadband: Maxis has the lowest fair usage threshold among ISPs in Malaysia, ranging from 1 GB to 3 GB.
More on http://www.maxis.com.my/personal/broadband/termncon.asp

Celcom Broadband: They’re more kind than Maxis. They offer 5 GB of bandwidth usage per month.
More on http://www.celcom.com.my/cep/xresources/CelcomCORP/broadband/html/advance_tnc.html

P1 W1MAX: They offer 20 GB of bandwidth usage per month.
More on http://www.p1.com.my/Wimax/aspx/wimax_faq_ref.aspx

Please note this: After you use that amount of bandwidth, they deserve the right to terminate your account, suspend it, or control your bandwidth. Please read more on the link provided.

Consumers out there, please, choose a package that really suits your needs.

You might be wondering why should I write about this, but initially, I am one of the ‘victims’ because I don’t really read the T&C given by them IN THEIR WEBSITE. I thought it is purely unlimited as my Streamyx at home.

During holiday seasons, there are three main Internet users in my home, which are my father, my brother, and me. We rarely use peer to peer programs and we rarely download anything bigger than 50MB. We mainly use the internet for Wikipedia, Friendster, and some local newspaper websites. Guess what? My computer alone uses around 200MB of bandwidth per day. My brother and my father uses even more as my brother surf for a longer time than me and my father likes to watch videos from YouTube.

We share our internet connection by a Wi-Fi router. So, lets say three of us uses only 500MB of bandwidth per day. A month (30-day) will yield around 15GB of data bandwidth. 7 months of using Streamyx (in my home, which located in a small coastal town in Perlis) requires me to call only once to TM support because some technical problem. Other than that, everything is fine. They give us their promised speed (almost 384k per second) and virtually no connection problem except for the one that I mentioned above. So, I can say that TMNet (in my area) is gracious enough to give me interrupt-free internet access). Even though I know that there are many unsatisfied customers who feel very angry towards TM because of their poor service at some areas.

However, wireless broadband also have its own weaknesses. Now, I am using Celcom Broadband that belongs to my friend. Its connection has been cut off for no apparent reason just now. What I have to do is to disconnect and reconnect it back. Come on Celcom, its Shah Alam here. This is not a rural area. Please provide constant connectivity to us.

P.s

If anybody, any company, any organisation feel that this information is not true, please give comments and ask me to correct it. I am willing to give cooperation as my main purpose is not to blame any company for this ‘bandwidth’ limit. I just wan t to share my own experience and share what I know with my readers.

UPDATE(S):

Just now, as on Monday, November 17 2008, 2 a.m (approximately), I went to the Celcom’s website in order to recheck their Fair Usage Policy (click here to visit the page). Now there’s slight change for their Fair Usage Policy. READ PART 3 OF THE PAGE. It can be summarised as below:

• After you have exceeded the allocated data volume (bandwidth) in a particular month, Celcom will have the right to reduce your speed.
• Broadband Basic (normal speed is 384kbit/s) will be reduced to 64kbit/s.
• Broadband Advance (normal speed is 3.6Mbit/s) will be reduced to 128kbit/s.

It’s good enough for me. But I suggest that they should set a higher bandwidth for Broadband Advance customers. They are paying extra. Give them more privilege. Anyway, THANK YOU CELCOM.

DISCLAIMER

Every entity mentioned here is just for informative purposes only. I shall not responsible for any damage in any way occurred from this information.

Author’s Note

First revision date: 02 November 2008

Revision: 3