Talking

I’m waiting for the news about High Speed BroadBand(HSBB),but till now I can’t see any movements in my living area.Well,Streamyx,the ADSL service provided by TM,seems to be quite active recently.4 months ago,it just brought super upgrade deals and now it introduces BlockBuster deals which are not only for broadband services,but also for voice services.

I think TM had met some difficulties in past several years with the competitions from those mobile service providers in voice service sector.In fact,I haven’t made fixed calls for years because the calling rate from a landline to a mobile phone is too expensive,even higher than the rate calling from a mobile phone.

Finally TM realized it and resolved it.At least the new rate,10sen/min from fixed to mobile(in BB Deal 1/2MBPS and Voice Deal 68),is reasonable as it’s almost at the same level compared to the mobile charges.Also the new deal provides a free DECT phone that makes us more convenient to call someone at home through home line.By the way,I think the free calls to local and nationwide are the big points too.I believe that can reduce the communication costs for the consumers,less charges on the mobile bills.That’s great!

A free WIFI modem will be given by subscribing the plan.However,I don’t think that will be the nice one.Maybe I will just put it at the corner of the house and only temporarily use it when my current modem is dead.

The details are as follow:

The deals are available to all new and existing customers who are not binding with any contract.You could get more information here or visit your nearest TMpoint.Anyway,I’m still looking forward to HSBB.

Currently Maxis is doing a promotion to all existing postpaid customers who meet the requirements:

*Being individual Maxis postpaid principle holder for more than 6 months

*With minimum spend of RM50 monthly

*With no barred line

If you meet all the criteria,you could subscribe the Bonanza package:

I went to subscribe the service last Monday and after one hour of submitting the application,I was able to start to use the broadband service.During the past several days,I brought a DiGi simcard and tested the stability and performance against Maxis.I found that they have different pros and cons.

Maxis:

It’s not stable in some places,including testing in my home.The maximum speed could reach 3.6mbps in Sunway and One Utama area,but only could get 100-200kbps in my home.I think it’s because the capacity of bandwidth has been full in my area and Maxis didn’t improve the service on time.

DiGi:

My friend subscribes DiGi Discover plan which is promised for average download speed 700kbps and upload speed 200kbps.DiGi seems to cap the download speed at 1mbps and so it always reaches around there in almost every place.

My two cents are:If you persuade to get a higher speed for some time,you could try Maxis as it didn’t cap the speed yet;Otherwise,please use DiGi Broadband to get much stable service.

DiGi is setting up a road show in One Utama from 12 November to 15 November,2009.As what I mentioned yesterday,DiGi planed to give the customers some surprises.Now here they are:

If you’re interested in the promotional items-3G modem/BlackBerry/HP Mini Netbook/Nokia N97 Mini,please rush to One Utama to grab the one you like.Remember it is based on first come first served.Good luck guys!

The Asia America Gateway(AAG) was said to be introduced in August,but now delay to November 11st,2009.This is the first high-bandwidth optical fiber submarine cable system connecting 10 locations:Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, Guam and Hawaii with the US West Coast.

The cable has 20,000KM-long and been capable up to 480 Gigabits per second to meet present and future requirements for telecommunications services.At the meanwhile,another 8,000KM-long cable serving for the local region-Asia Pacific Gateway(APG) is under construction and expected to be completed in 2011.

So finally AAG is joining to the service,but how will it improve our broadband service by TM and other local ISPs?I don’t know yet.Wait for another 5 days and we could get some answer from ourselves.

I almost forget U Mobile-the first mobile service provider in Malaysia which only provides 3G network and offers 1 second per block of calling charges.Today I find that U Mobile is also introducing its fresh-renovated broadband product:U Broadband,another wireless broadband service based on 3G network.

Compared to DiGi Broadband,the tariffs of U Broadband seems to be much friendly to the customers.However,I have no comment whether it could serve with a good performance just as it indicates.In fact,I heard quite a number of U Mobile users complaining about the bad customer service and coverage.

Maybe cheap is not the only concern.