Maxis has finally revealed its Maxis WiFi Hotspot service. Earlier on this was silently mentioned during its iPhone 4 price slash where it comes as a Free subscription for new subscribers. However it was later removed and we wondered if the service was ready for prime time. Now looks like it is finally ready and had reappeared on Maxis site together with its full packages.

Currently this service is only available for Maxis postpaid and Hotlink Prepaid customers. For SMS activations, there are 3 plans available – RM3 daily, RM10 weekly and RM20 monthly with 500MB, 2GB and 4GB quota respectively. Once you have finished your data quota or if your access has expired, your subscription will be terminated immediately.

However for postpaid customers, there’s another plan option which is rather affordable if you subscribe online. Maxis offers RM3/month with 2GB access for Maxis postpaid customers. That’s quite a vast difference compared to its SMS activated packages.

In terms of coverage availability, we can’t seem to get a list as the WiFi Coverage Area finder is not working. You can try your luck again over here. For any assistance related to Maxis WiFi, you can call their careline at 1800 82 1123.

This isn’t the first time Maxis offered a WiFi subscription service as they previously had a WiFi service branded Utopia alongside other providers such as AirZed and TM Hotspot during the early days.

Currently we got no clue where this service is available but this seems to be an affordable add-on option for Maxis subscribers. For RM3 a month with 2GB quota, the WiFi option is great for users that often tether their phones with Maxis 3G network or those who often exceed their monthly quotas. All it boils down to is its coverage at popular hotspots such as shopping mall and coffee houses.

For more information on Maxis WiFi Hotspot, click here.

The iPhone 4 is finally launched by Maxis and people are getting their units as we speak. The queue to the collection area above is insane. A huge difference compared to DiGi’s event.

During the event it was mentioned that the iPhone is available on prepaid and it comes with free 12 months of 500MB data. However we haven’t seen the price for prepaid yet. Even hotlink’s website is inaccessible at time of posting. The other postpaid price remains unchanged.

We will update more when we can.

Hotlink has revised their prepaid data plans again. Last month they introduced 2 bi-weekly internet plans of 100MB and 250MB at RM18 and RM38 respectively.

Today we noticed the 250MB bi-weekly plan has been dropped and they have introduced a new lightweight 5MB weekly plan at RM3/week.

While 5MB is nothing much, it is pretty affordable for users that facebook or tweet lightly over Opera Mini. Normally 5MB would cost RM50 on pay per use basis (RM0.10 per 10KB), so RM3 for 5MB is a bargain.

Other packages are unchanged and Hotlink seems to cover users with different data appetites.

For those on a monthly package, take note! Hotlink provided a useful tip if you have a sudden need for data. Instead of busting your monthly quota when you require intensive data for a short period, you are able to purchase a RM2 hourly (100MB) or RM8 daily (500MB) pass on top of your subscription. This is a pretty neat flexibility given to manage your data cost and consumption better. Postpaid users get to enjoy this flexibility too as mentioned under Maxis postpaid internet section.

For more information, visit Hotlink’s page.

For comparison, we got the last month’s package table below.

OLD

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Maxis has finally released its pricing and offer for the BlackBerry Curve 9300 (aka Curve 3G). Celcom had released their BlackBerry Curve 3G offers 2 days back while DiGi is still pathetically doing Registration of Interest.

The BlackBerry Curve 9300 itself retails at RM1299 and instead of slashing the device price cheaper, Maxis used a different way of bundling from the rest. For postpaid, the BlackBerry Curve is offered at RM1659 and it comes bundled with 12 months BIS Advanced subscription of RM360. For Hotlink Prepaid, it goes for RM1479 bundled with 6 months of BIS plan.

At first glance, it seems that Maxis is having an expensive deal but what you’ll get is cheaper BIS subscription for paying upfront. For instance, the postpaid offer comes with BIS Advanced which normally costs RM120/month. For this offer, you’re only paying RM360 for 12 months which is a total savings of RM1080. So with that subscription savings factored in, the BlackBerry Curve would cost a mere RM579.

For prepaid, it comes with 6 months BIS subscription which costs RM98/month. In this offer, 6 months subscription is bundled in for a mere RM180. So you’ll get a total savings of RM408 from this bundle, making the device costing RM1071 after savings. It is weird that Maxis mentions that the saving is worth RM480, this could be a typo by their web designer. Don’t worry Maxis, DiGi made a bigger mistake on their website during its reveal.

What’s even more weird is that Hotlink mentions the 6 months of BIS is FREE when it is actually charged on top of the retail price of RM1299. Looks like Hotlink and Maxis team are not in sync in terms of communication.

While Celcom gives cheaper device outright, Maxis gives you more savings off the normal subscription on the long run. The only con is that you would need to fork out extra upfront which isn’t a bad thing considering the amount you will be saving.

Another note worth mentioning is Hotlink is giving Free BIS access for first time blackberry users for 5 days. Check out Hotlink Blackberry page for more info.

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Hotlink has introduced a bi weekly rates for its mobile internet package in addition to its hourly, daily and monthly mobile internet packages.

The new bi weekly packages offer a 100MB data usage plan for RM18 and a 250MB data usage for RM38. It offers good options for the prepaid user but managing your data use the MB is a bit of a hassle in our opinion. If we had to choose, we’d take a monthly option any day. But having said that, if you’re using your mobile exclusively for IM and tweeting then, the bi weekly plans are worth a look.

NEW: Hotlink bi weekly mobile internet plans

OLD: Previous Hotlink mobile internet plans

Also, Hotlink will be revising their pay-per-use data rates to reflect industry standard rates of 10KB per block (RM0.10/10KB from 7am – 2am & RM0.05/10KB from 2am – 7am). The average price per KB remains the same. The new pay-per-use rates will take affect from 16 August onwards.

For more details on Hotlink’s mobile internet plans, click here.

Hotlink has finally introduced a daily blackberry prepaid package for RM2.50/day. This comes shortly after DiGi’s introduction of its RM2/day daily blackberry service.

For the extra 50 sen, you’ll get a generous 200MB/day data usage as compared to DiGi’s 100MB. To activate, just dial *100#, select Internet and BlackBerry Internet Service. The daily package is renewed automatically.

Similar to DiGi and XpaX, this is only applicable within Blackberry Service inclusive of Email, IM, Social Networking and web browsing. If you use the typical UNET APN or for internet tethering, you will be charged separately.

Read up the FAQ or head to the Hotlink Blackberry page for more details.

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In-conjunction with the current football fever, Maxis is running “The Biggest Fan” contest that gives away 10 pairs of trips to see Lionel Messi in Barcelona or Frank Lampard in London.

Participation is simple, simply submit a photo or a video and notify Maxis about it. You can use any media sharing site such as Flikr, Photobucket, youtube but make sure your title starts with “The Maxis Biggest Fan Audition – …” followed by your own title.

The contest is open to both Maxis and Hotlink prepaid customers and submission ends on 12th July 2010.

For more details, head on to the contest site here.

Hold your horses people, the iPad in question is not for sale. It is in fact the top prize for a movie contest that Hotlink is running. It’s no piddly, low-end 16GB either, Hotlink is giving away the almost top of the line 64GB version.

More details HERE.

Best of all, Maxis subscribers can have a whack at the iPad too (that means Maxis subs can also participate in the contest).

Good luck to you sir!

Hotlink is hyping its rewards program with this rather creative approach.

Claycam is a website that features a clay modeller sculpting clay all day long. The hype is is that the clay modeller sculpts models based on your requests.

So you can log on to the site and submit a request and if its approved, it will appear on a que. All you have to do then is wait for the your request to move up the order and eventually be sculptured in clay.

And apparently this is all streamed live.

The site will be up for five days this month starting from 4 Aug to 8 Aug. You can watch the clay modeller sculpt all sorts of stuff in clay daily from 10am to 8pm.

Did you notice Hotlink changed its tagline from “Activate your life Life Unlimited” to “So much is possible”.

Since Monday, Maxis subscribers in Sabah were caught with a surprise when their phone starts showing No Network or Emergency Calls only. This leaves Sabah Maxis subscribers disconnected causing frustration and inconvenience for several days now.

To date there isn’t any official explanation of the cause of the service outage. However it seems that Maxis is trying their best to rectify the problem as soon as possible. Some reported that Maxis service was up for several hours before going back down again. On Maxis website, they have post a new notice that Sabah subscribers can make/receive Calls and SMS but may experience some difficulty in connecting. A quick check on the ground in Sabah revealed that Maxis network showed some improvement but its still far from fully up and running.

Hopefully Maxis service in Sabah will be restored as soon as possible as I believe Digi & Celcom would be enjoying a spike of prepaid sales right now.

Links:

Maxis Service Down?
Apa sebab sebenar Maxis down di Sabah?
Maxis Malaysia is Down
Maxis down all over KK?