UPDATE: Celcom Home Broadband is now official. Available for FIRST Gold customers in the Klang Valley only.
The fixed fibre broadband scene is heating up as Celcom joins the race with their Home Broadband service offering speeds of up to 10Mbps.
According to Lowyat.net, the telco’s new plan would be called the Celcom Home Broadband and will offer speeds of 10Mbps for RM145/month (excl GST). If you’re a Celcom FIRST Gold subscriber, you will receive a 50% discount for the first six months of your Home Broadband subscription. That means you pay RM72.50/month (excl GST) for the first six months. Lowyat.net also claims that this plan is targetted towards Celcom subscribers, but made no mention on whether non-Celcom subscribers are eligible.
For calls, the Celcom Home Broadband will charge users 8sen/min to all networks, while IDD calls will follow Celcom Postpaid’s IDD rates and will be charged in 30-second blocks. The following table provides a detailed breakdown of the plan:
Lowyat.net’s information came from an anonymous source, so we thought we’d call Celcom up and see if we could verify it. According to the Celcom customer service representative, the telco did indeed “launch” their plan today which lends credence to Lowyat.net’s source.
The customer service rep confirms all the plan details in the table above and that it is indeed available from today onwards, however, he did not have any information regarding the coverage area. That said, he did inform us that users who wished to sign up or find out if their area was covered could simply visit a Celcom Blue Cube for more information.
We have a hunch that Celcom’s fibre service will be using TM‘s High-Speed Broadband infrastructure (like Maxis Fibre) due to an earlier agreement between the parties. This means if your area is covered by UniFi, you will likely be able to get Celcom Home Broadband too.
Although today was supposed to be the launch, there is still no information about this plan on the Celcom website. The Celcom customer service rep ensures that you will be able to get more information on their website soon.
It is worth noting that this isn’t Celcom’s first stab at a fibre broadband as they did have a First Home broadband plan back in 2012.
It’s decent, but nothing to shout about
Looking at the plan, we’re not terribly impressed by it. It’s fine if you’re a light user that only wants to spend the bare minimum on fibre Internet connectivity, but if you’re a moderate or heavy user, you’re better off topping up a little extra for about two or three times faster speeds on UniFi or Maxis Fibre.
You could also add RM4 more and get TIME‘s 100Mbps plan — if you can find yourself within their coverage area, but that’s only slightly less difficult than finding a unicorn.
The way we see it, the most attractive thing about this plan is the fact that you can get 50% off for the first six months if you’re a Celcom FIRST Gold plan subscriber. Besides that, you’re probably better off with one of the new plans from the other fibre providers.
Want more information on the new fibre plans from TIME, TM and Maxis? Check out our fibre comparison. Want a laugh? Check this out.
Do let us know what you think of Celcom’s new fibre plan in the comments below.
UPDATED: Celcom Home Broadband ad from TheStar.
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