In conjunction with the MTV World Stage Malaysia 2011, Celcom has updated their broadband plans offering better value for money with faster speeds and higher data caps across the board. In addition to that, Celcom also introduced a new top-of-the-line broadband plan for heavy data users.

Also, Celcom is offering special limited edition 7.2Mbps 3G dongles featuring some funky MTV World Stage designs.

The new plan from Celcom — Celcom Broadband Pro — offers 10GB of monthly data at RM138/month. In comparison, Maxis‘ most expensive plan offers 12GB of data for a ludicrous RM198/month. On paper, Celcom’s direct competitor with its new plan is Yes. Yes offers the same monthly data cap at 10GB but at a slightly higher price at RM150 though it’s worth noting that Yes’ converged network comes with a number of bells and whistles like free talk time and SMS, multiple device use with a single account and unlimited credit rollover (which is something we like).

But the best value in terms of data quota by far for heavy users comes from U Mobile with its MB128 offering giving you a generous 20GB of data at just RM128/month. On the flip side however, U Mobile’s coverage is probably not as extensive as the other 3G operators.

Update: Whoops, we made a boo-boo. Looks like DiGi does offer a 10GB plan as well. At RM103/month, it is the cheapest amongst the 10GB plans, but DiGi’s 3G coverage is patchy and its network is, of late, plagued with inconsistent performance that remains unresolved to this day.

As for DiGi and P1, it doesn’t offer a dongle only plan both operators don’t offer a comparable mobile broadband plan that offers anything with a data quota that’s above 6GB/month.

So the choice is yours. Hit up the source link for more details.

[source]
Hat tip to @synnnx

	Celcom, Players on the Field
	Celcom, Celcom Broadband, MTV, MTV World Stage, MTV World Stage Celcom, MTV World Stage Malaysia

UPDATE: Updated Broadband Comparison with breakdown of Fixed, Mobile Broadband & Mobile Internet plans.

Our Malaysia Broadband Cost Comparison post is in dire need of an update since most broadband providers had revised/introduced new broadband plans. As demanded by you, we’ve updated the broadband comparison table as below:

Further breakdown with speed & excess charge by categories after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

	Celcom, DiGi, Industry in General, Maxis, P1, Players on the Field, TM, TuneTalk, U Mobile, UniFi, Yes
	Broadband Comparison, Broadband Price, Celcom, Celcom Broadband, Comparison, Malaysia, Malaysia Broadband, Malaysia Broadband Comparison, Malaysia Broadband Price, Malaysia Broadband Rates, Malaysia cost per GB, Malaysia Internet Rates, Maxis, Maxis Broadband, mobile broadband, P1 4G, P1 WiMAX, streamyx, TM, Tune Talk, U Mobile, U Mobile Broadband, Unifi, Yes

UPDATE (110717) : Broadband Pricing Comparison in Malaysia updated for 2011! Check out the latest update here.

UPDATE (101130 2100) : Broadband Pricing Comparison in Malaysia updated with Maxis iPad Plans.

UPDATE (101120 1230) : Broadband Pricing Comparison in Malaysia now with Yes data pricing including rebates.

Recently after the appearance of yes 4G rates, everybody gets cost conscious all of a sudden about Broadband pricing. Some had quickly mentioned that yes 9 sen/3MB ain’t cheap with some pointing out that it costs RM900 for their average 30GB of download usage.

Since cost per GB is a hot topic now, we figured why don’t we compare all broadband offerings in Malaysia and find out how much they cost per GB. Below is our findings ranking from the cheapest to the most expensive.

Cost per GB

NOTE: So far we only considered plans either postpaid or prepaid that offer monthly access. Also added are the standard PAYU (Pay as you go) rates which includes yes and Tune Talk. There are different policies and terms for each plans with some only calculating download quota while others include uploads. There are also other factors to consider such as download speeds and excess charge if you exceed Fair Usage Policy. Streamyx ADSL was excluded due to the fact that they offer “unlimited access” with unspecified quota on a best effort basis.

We do admit that it is unfair to compare cost per GB across the board as there’s an obvious differentiator when it comes to application. In general, obviously fixed broadband is cheaper per GB but it compromises on mobility which often comes at a higher cost. To make it clearer, we have segregate the broadband offerings into 3 categories: Fixed Broadband, Mobile Broadband (Pure Data) and Mobile Internet (Add-on for Phone). Check out the other 3 tables in detail after the jump.

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	Celcom, DiGi, Industry in General, Maxis, P1, Players on the Field, Streamyx, TM, TuneTalk, U Mobile, UniFi, Yes
	Broadband Comparison, Broadband Price, Celcom, Celcom Broadband, Comparison, Malaysia, Malaysia Broadband, Malaysia Broadband Comparison, Malaysia Broadband Price, Malaysia Broadband Rates, Malaysia cost per GB, Malaysia Internet Rates, Maxis, Maxis Broadband, mobile broadband, P1 4G, P1 WiMAX, streamyx, TM, Tune Talk, U Mobile, U Mobile Broadband, Unifi, yes 4g

Before you read further, we’re going to tell you straight up, don’t bother. Almost every other telco is offering a better deal compared to the latest broadband offering from Celcom.

Here’s the breakdown.

On the surface the new plans from Celcom offer pricing that’s competitive with its competitors but when you drill in deeper you’ll see that the boys in blue a shortchanging you on speed. Celcom is not just capping data but also capping speed with the price plans when other telcos are already going “speed free”, meaning for whatever plan you subscribe, you are entitled to the best speed you can get on their network.

And this makes sense because charging users based on speed is just plain stupid. It’s like paying for a litre of milk but you’re not guaranteed a litre, you could get 500ml, 200ml or you could very well get nothing.

On top of that, you there’s a RM100 registration fee, which is just ridiculous.

Looking at this we can’t really recommend the plans from Celcom, Maxis offers better value by some margin and if you want to go with prepaid, the best value for money prepaid in the market right now is U Mobile. And if you don’t like Maxis or U Mobile, DiGi at least gives you more GB for your money.

Bottom line, stay away from Celcom if you want the best value for mobile broadband. But if you’re still interested, click here to check out the details on Celcom’s official site.

	Celcom, Players on the Field
	3g broadband, Axiata, Celcom, Celcom Broadband, mobile broadband, mobile broadband plan analysis, mobile broadband plans Malaysia, new Celcom broadband plans

Thanks to social media, we’ve gotten an early peek on Celcom’s new 3G Broadband plans. A twitpic from @TianChad had broke the news on the broadband offering.

From the picture, the packages are as follows:

• RM48/month – up to 384kbps – 1GB quota
• RM68/month – up to 512kbps – 3GB quota
• RM98/month – up to 3.6Mbps – 5GB quota

Those who subscribe from now until 31st August will get RM10 off the monthly subscription for the first 3 months.

We will update if there’s more details announced later.

[ SOURCE ]

	Celcom, Players on the Field
	3g broadband, Axiata, Broadband, Celcom, Celcom Broadband

We sent an email to the VP of group corporate communications in TM to get a status update on what caused the 30 minute nationwide outage of all its broadband services including sister company’s Celcom broadband service.

We didn’t get a reply.

Instead tucked in an obscure corner of their website, TM has put up a short and condescendingly generic announcement apologising to its subscribers for the service outage. Not a single sentence in the announcement even attempted to vaguely explain what had cause the outage.

What it does mention is that “restoration works are already in progress and services in some areas have been restored in stages“. In addition to that, “TM is currently monitoring the situation and will make further announcements on the progress of the restoration works“.

The announcement didn’t indicate any timeline upon which TM hopes to complete the “restoration work“.

Once again the nation’s self proclaimed number one broadband provider has kept its over one million subscribers in the dark.

Here’s what other Streamyx subscribers are saying… #StreamyxSucks

Dear TM, more than an apology, we all deserve an explanation.

(Update 1134hrs 16042010) Got a reply from TM. They said that they will continue provide updates via announcements on TM website. Here’s the latest announcement, TM says broadband services have been fully restored and measures have been put in place to ensure that service is not interupted.

Based on what we know, we’re pretty sure the outage is beyond a DNS failure and could be something else. What it is,TM won’t tell us.

	Industry in General, Network Outages, Players on the Field, TM
	Celcom, Celcom Broadband, celcom broadband down, HSBB, hsbb down, streamyx, streamyx down, streamyx nationwide outage, TM, Tm nationwide outage, Unifi, unifi down, unifi nationwide outage

Almost 20 minutes after its network got back up TM made this official announcement via its Twitter account citing DNS failure to domestic and international servers since 1730hrs today.

Although there have been reports that service has been restored about half an hour after the outage was detected, TM states that restoration process is still ongoing in stages.

We’ve resquested an official response from the group corporate communication deparment on TM on this outage and will update you as soon as we hear from them.

	Celcom, Industry in General, Network Outages, Players on the Field, TM
	Celcom, Celcom Broadband, celcom broadband down, HSBB, hsbb down, streamyx, streamyx down, streamyx nationwide outage, TM, Tm nationwide outage, Unifi, unifi down, unifi nationwide outage

Our public Twitter timeline is lighting up like the 4th of July right now.

Massive complaints on Streamxy and HSBB UniFi subscribers not able to connect to the Internet. Apparently TM‘s broadband service was down as early as 1730hrs

We can’t verify is this is a nationwide outage or if it is multiple instances of isolated casses but by the sheer number of complaints we’re seeing it looks like it is a major outage.

Updates as we get them.

(Update 1759hrs 15042010) Getting reports that Celcom broadband is down too.

(Update 1821hrs 15042010) TM replied via Twitter that “they have escalated the issue to the relevant parties and will update accordingly“. We shall wait diligently for those updates. Stay tuned!

(Update 1821hrs 15042010) Looks like this will be our final update on the Streamyx and UniFi HSBB outage. Twitter timeline reporting both services are up including Celcom. From our estimates, it looks like the nation’s largest broadband provider was out of commission for over 30 minutes.

Even if the service was down for a seamingly short period, the question is, what caused the outage and has enough measures been pun in place to prevent it from happening again?

30 minutes can mean a lot of money for businesses that rely on TM for their Internet. Not to mention the number of Celcom broadband users who were also affected.

	Celcom, Industry in General, Network Outages, Players on the Field, TM
	Celcom, Celcom Broadband, celcom broadband down, HSBB, hsbb down, streamyx, streamyx down, streamyx nationwide outage, TM, Tm nationwide outage, Unifi, unifi down, unifi nationwide outage

Wireless Broadband using 3G / HSDPA has been quite a hit lately in the local broadband scene. In the past, Internet outside your home or office was pretty much your nearest Starbucks with WiFi hotspots. Now as long as you’re in 3G coverage, you can surf pretty much anywhere and anytime.

Gradually it began to be widely acceptable and is seen as the best alternative to the mainstream ADSL Broadband by Streamyx. However, there are some limitations to 3G/HSDPA Broadband which couldn’t make it a total replacement for Streamyx.

Read the rest of this entry »

	Celcom, Maxis, Mobile Devices, Players on the Field
	Celcom 3G, Celcom Broadband, Celcom vs Maxis HSDPA Router, Maxis WiFi Modem, Shared 3G Broadband, Unlimited Data Broadband, Wireless HSDPA Router