U Mobile is boosting up its HSPA+ network offering with a MiFi and a new USB modem. While U Mobile’s network is capable up to 42Mbps, the MiFi offered is limited up to 21Mbps.

The device is priced at RM250 outright and comes bundled on either MB68 or MB128 plans which offers 5GB and 20GB data quota respectively. The price of the MiFi is not bad considering the previous HSPA+ USB modem costs RM450. Like its previous broadband offers, a RM100 upfront payment is required which will be rebated back over 5 month period.

For those that prefer something simpler, they are also offering the HSPA+ USB modem on rental basis for RM20/month. Unlike the previous HSPA+ USB plan, the new USB modem is not available for outright purchase. There’s also a 1 month additional upfront payment required for the USB rental plan.

In addition, if you’re not satisfied with their service for any reasons, you can demand a refund within 7 days with their Money Back Guarantee. Of course there are some T&Cs which includes returning the modem in good order and your usage did not exceed more than 500MB. If all their Money Back Guarantee terms are met, you’ll get a full refund including activation fees. All that without finding a competitive plan with certain number of modems and other criteria.

How fast can you get really depends on the coverage and congestion of their sites. Earlier on, their network was spotted doing a respectable 17Mbps. At RM128/month for 20GB and with speeds above 10Mbps, U Mobile HSPA+ MB128 plan is a steal for wireless broadband. We can’t wait to try it out ourselves and see how it compares with others technology such as 4G WiMAX.

For more information, head over to U Mobile’s Broadband page.

	HSPA+, Players on the Field, Technologies, U Mobile
	High Speed Packet Access, HSPA, HSPA+ MiFi, HSPA+ Modem, Malaysia HSPA+, U Mobile, U Mobile HSPA+, U Mobile MiFi

U Mobile has finally revealed its HSPA+ Broadband plans today with a special rebate offer for 5 months. Earlier today, we mentioned that they have revised the U Broadband Plans which they have removed the speed caps allowing full speed downloads up to 42Mbps. To keep things simple, the HSPA+ plans are similar with their typical 3G broadband plans. The 2 key plans eligible for this promo are UB40 which gives you 2GB quota and UB68 unlimited plan with 5GB FUP.

For this promo, they are giving the 7.2Mbps modem for Free, while the activation fee of RM100 applies. Meanwhile the anticipated HSPA+ 42Mbps modem is offered at a pricey RM450 but its activation fee is fully waived. The rebate promotion that they are having is simply 5 months rebate of RM20 each which is a savings of RM100. For the HSPA+ package, that makes the modem cost RM350 effectively.

The promo header states that it is available in Johor Bahru and Penang too. Looks like U Mobile is delivering its HSPA+ to more places than it claimed earlier on. You can check out the coverage details here.

For more information, head to U Mobile’s 42Mbps Promo page here.

	HSPA+, U Mobile
	HSPA, U Mobile, U Mobile Broadband, U Mobile HSPA+, U Mobile HSPA+ Modem, U Mobile HSPA+ Promo

U Mobile has revised its U Broadband Plans which now offers uncapped speeds up to 42Mbps for all options. Previously only the highest option of RM68/month offers uncapped speeds up to 3.6Mbps while the smaller options such as daily RM6 or monthly RM10 being capped at 384kbps download.

This is a welcome move which allows casual users to enjoy faster speeds even if they take up smaller byte sized packages for couple of days use. As announced during U Mobile’s BlackBerry launch, additional Pay As You Use (PAYU) data is charged at only 5 sen per MB.

The new speed revision also indicates that U Mobile is closer towards its HSPA+ launch that offers speeds up to 42Mbps, making it the probably the fastest wireless broadband in Malaysia. HSPA+ is the next evolution of 3G’s HSPA with providers in the US such as T-Mobile claiming 4G. In the end of the day, all that matters is the achievable speeds that consumers can get whether it is on HSPA+, LTE or WiMAX. Another burning question is how fast can U Mobile roll out its HSPA+ coverage to more places considering its FAQ only mentions Sunway and Subang Jaya for now.

Another worthy mention is that U Mobile’s affordable MiFi promotion has been extended until 30th April 2011. You can check it out at U Mobile MiFi promo page. For comparison of MiFi deals in Malaysia, do read our previous MiFi comparison post.

Head after the break for the previous U Broadband Plans with its old speed caps

Read the rest of this entry »

	HSPA+, Players on the Field, Technologies, U Mobile
	HSPA, U Mobile, U Mobile Broadband, U Mobile HSPA+

A little over a month after U Mobile started opening registration of interest (ROI) for it’s HSPA+ network, we are now seeing a few seeding units of its 42Mbps HSPA+ broadband modem being tested in the wild.

No price plans or device pricing has been revealed just yet but we are now getting an indication of what kind of speeds you can expect to see on this new HSPA+ network — possibly Malaysia’s first. This picture taken by a tester, shows a download speed of 2,180KB/s or about 17Mpbs.

17Mbps is certainly fast when you compare it with the current average speeds that you can get on a 3G network. But if you compare it with a similarly new network with very little load like Yes 4G and the fact that U Mobile is claiming download speed of up to 42Mbps, then 17Mbps might not look so spectacular but it is still very good for a wireless connection.

If you look closely at the picture, you’ll note that the download manager estimates that it takes a little over 30 minutes to download a 60MB portion of the total 512MB file. If you do the math you’ll know that a 60MB file will take much less than 30 minutes to download if you’re getting a constant 17Mbps stream. So that could mean the indicated 17Mbps is the peak speed that the tester was able to get during this particular download.

Though, we’d like to point out U Mobile does clearly state in its ROI page FAQ that users should expect an average download speeds of 3Mbps – 10Mbps and average upload speeds of 0.5Mbps to 1.5Mbps. So if that is that case then 17Mbps is well about the average speed claimed by U Mobile.

Read the rest of this entry »

	HSPA+, Players on the Field, Technologies, U Mobile
	High Speed Packet Access, HSPA, HSPA+ Modem, Malaysia HSPA+, U Mobile, U Mobile HSPA+

After all that hype of announcements and events, U Mobile finally starts “Registration of Interest” for its 42Mbps broadband modem. This runs on their newly announced HSPA+ network with speeds up to 42Mbps. No price plan or device pricing has been given but it all points to be revealed only next year.

In terms of coverage, Berjaya Times Square is the only place that’s covered but they mentioned that Subang Jaya and Sunway areas being rolled out right now. If you’re not staying in those areas, we’re not convinced how fast they could roll out to other area considering U Mobile is rather slow in coverage expansion as compared to the other players. In other words, don’t expect them to offer nationwide HSPA+ coverage anytime soon especially when they can’t even cover Peninsular Malaysia even for 3G coverage.
For now, this looks more appealing for college students around the Subang area next year.

Speedwise, U Mobile has mentioned that its 42Mbps HSPA+ network will give an average download speed of between 3 to 10Mbps with an average upload between 0.5Mbps to 1.5Mbps, which is less than 25% of its 42Mbps theoritical figure. We are expecting more but 3Mbps average is something that’s already faster than what we are getting from today’s 3G/HSDPA speeds in Malaysia. Hopefully that U Mobile will be able to manage traffic and congestions on their network properly when their HSPA+ goes into service. So far we don’t have much complains on their 3G broadband and they are quite affordable among the rest if coverage is not an issue in your area.

If you’re interested, sign up here. Don’t forget to read the FAQ as well.

	HSPA+, Players on the Field, Technologies, U Mobile
	High Speed Packet Access, HSPA, HSPA+ Modem, Malaysia HSPA+, U Mobile, U Mobile HSPA+

T-Mobile USA has announced its HSPA+ rollout to more metro areas and boldly claims America’s Largest 4G network. To mark that announcement, they are also offering nationwide availability of T-Mobile’s myTouch 4G phone and Dell Inspiron Mini 10 4G netbook tomorrow.

We’ve mentioned several weeks back that ITU announced the technical definition of 4G standards specifically mentioning as LTE Advanced or WiMAX 2 — technologies that are not commercially available right now — as the 4G standard.

Technical definitions aside, we have LTE, WiMAX and now HSPA+ players shouting claiming their network as 4G in the US and in Malaysia. Most of these operators are calling their next-generation networks as 4G to point out superior performance over today’s 3G networks.

So what is 4G? Some people are kicking a big fuss over misleading or false advertising after ITU’s recent announcement. But what does it matter to consumers? Even the Malaysian Government considers LTE as 4G.

4G to consumers is something that offers superior speeds than 3G.  T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network currently boast speeds up to 21Mbps with average speeds of 5Mbps on a T-Mobile 4G phone which is pretty impressive. They even have plans to boost this up to 42Mbps by 2011 which is what U Mobile had announced but have yet to offer to public.

Like some had mentioned, nobody is going to look into the alphabet soup of 4G definition and cry foul over what is being offered now. The Joe Public on the street wouldn’t care and couldn;t care less. WHat matters to them is if they are on 4G, the performance had better be better than 3G.

What matters most we believe is what each “4G” operator promises to deliver to its customers. In Malaysia, our “4G” WiMAX operators have yet to really deliver WiMAX’s full potential. So called 4G operators in Malaysia have generally been with unimpressive delivering inconsistent performance speeds coupled with questionable reliability.

Overall we feel that “4G” in Malaysia doesn’t cut the mustard. We don’t mind an operator claiming it is operating on a 4G network even if it doesn’t technically fit the ITU definition, nobody is going to kill them for that. But what is important is that claim is backed up with true 4G performance. Performance that is trully a marked improvement over 3G networks. But sadly we haven’t experienced such a network in Malaysia.

So what is 4G to you? Leave us your comments.

Don’t forget to check out T-Mobile’s 4G advertisement after the jump. Doesn’t it reminds you of old Mac ads?

Read the rest of this entry »

	HSPA+, Players on the Field, Technologies
	4g, HSPA, MyTouch, T-Mobile, T-Mobile myTouch

So how fast HSPA+ really offers in the real world? Since U Mobile had started its first ever commercial HSPA+ in Malaysia, we are curious as well.

T-Mobile’s G2, is the first ever HSPA+ mobile device that runs on Android. The folks at Android Central had caught a unit running on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ capable network. From the speed results above, the G2 is capable of hitting nearly 15Mbps. Pretty impressive for a mobile device. Although this comes from an unknown source, we’re pretty much convinced on what HSPA+ is capable of offering.

So can U Mobile offer similar experience? They did claim that they are capable of offering downloads up to 42Mbps. Let’s just see what device they have to offer and how well they perform when it comes to capacity planning.

[ SOURCE ]

	HSPA+, HTC, Mobile Devices, Technologies
	G2, High Speed Package Access, HSPA, T-Mobile G2, U Mobile

U Mobile is taking on the bigger 3G boys by offering the first ever commercial HSPA+ coverage in Malaysia. This HSPA+ coverage boast a blazing 42Mbps but it is contained only within Berjaya Times Square.

According to its latest CEO Dr Kaizad Heerjee, users will be able to enjoy better mobile broadband with its upcoming USB devices that support HSPA+ soon. So far Berjaya Times Square is the only location and they are expected to roll out to more places in the Klang Valley in the coming weeks.

HSPA+ is the next revolution of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) which some say is 4G speeds with enhanced 3G technology. We have yet to see any HSPA+ device in the market but looks like U Mobile will be bundling them soon.

We got to give U Mobile credit as they really did surprise us with this one. This is definitely the next best thing after 3G before 4G LTE is ready in Malaysia.

[ SOURCE ]

	HSPA+, Players on the Field, U Mobile
	Ericsson, High Speed Packet Access, HSPA, Malaysia HSPA+, U Mobile