Time is Malaysia’s fastest fixed broadband provider according to Ookla’s Speedtest

Speedtest, the popular internet speed testing site, has just revealed its fixed broadband report for Malaysia that covers the second half of 2018. They have awarded Time the winner for having the fastest fixed broadband speed with a Speed Score of 114.02.

According to the report which measured over 12 million speedtests, TIME had achieved top download speeds of 266.4Mbps and upload speeds of 286.72Mbps. That’s more than double compared to TM. In terms of latency, it clocked an average latency of 9 ms and Time is the only provider that has a single digit ping in the report.

The performance doesn’t come as a surprise since Time operates on a 100% fibre network with no copper in between. On top of that, the lowest plan you can get on Time is 100Mbps which is currently offered at RM99/month. On top of that, Time has also upgraded all of their customers to the new faster plans without much issue.

While it is good that we have faster and cheaper broadband options from Time, their coverage areas are quite limited when compared to other broadband providers. According to Speedtest’s report, TIME has test count of 236,571 users while TM has 1,375,047 test users. Even Maxis, which also utilises TM’s HSBB network, is reported to have over 300,000 test users. Interestingly, Digi is also mentioned here with 123,110 test yers.

For a standardised comparison, Speedtest is using a Speed Score to rank the performance of all operators. 90% of the Speed Score is attributed to downloads and 10% is attributed to uploads, which makes sense since most people would download compared to upload. They also calculated the results with a modified trimean which takes speeds at 10th percentile, 50th percentile and 90th percentile, and then they combined these figures with a weighted average at a 1:2:1 ratio.

Below is a breakdown of the Speed Score in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and Penang:

Malaysians have recently enjoyed faster fibre broadband speeds at affordable prices after the implementation of the MSAP. However, this reduced pricing only benefits those who are within fibre coverage. Broadband providers are urged to increase their roll out of high-speed access especially in areas where people are still limited to Streamyx.

The Malaysian government is trying to bridge the gap with the National Fiberation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP). To support the initiative, TNB had conducted fibre broadband pilot tests in Jasin, Melaka where residents in covered areas can enjoy speeds of up to 1Gbps. Most recently, YTL Communications had also kicked off Terragraph trials which is capable of providing gigabit internet access via wireless.

You can read the full speedtest report here.

UPDATE: In the original article we mentioned that Time has 236,571 customers which is inaccurate. They have reached out to us to clarify that the figures provided by the report are number of users that have done a Speedtest in Q3-Q4 2018. We have updated the post to reflect this.