There are really too many complains that I’ve read online with regards to the lousy and slow Internet in Malaysia. I’ve done research and feel that the government is already slowly improving it. Following articles here, here and here, the government is already in a partnership with Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) to slowly improve and provide us with Broadband from 10Mbps to 100Mbps. God knows when that will happen.

What are your alternatives

• JARING. Back in 2001, I was surfing the Internet with Jaring’s 56k Internet. Pretty much satisfied with what I had, until 3 years later, I decided that 56k was too slow since I download quite a bit. They do have different packages running, such as wired and wireless (which comes with a free 015 line which enables really affordable International dialing!) Oh, and please ensure that the service is available in your area. As far as I know, it’s not available in my area (Johor Bahru) yet!
• P1 WiMAX. Shame on you if you haven’t heard about it. But that’s fine since it’s not so widely available to everywhere yet. Check out the availability map before you start deciding if you like it. I’ve heard of people who say it’s good and others who will never recommend that. Seriously, it depends on your area and your expectations.

I seriously only recommend the above two ISPs. There are always people unsatisfied with everything, no matter where you go. Even when you get over to Japan, with the cheapest Internet (In terms of USD per Mbps), there are people who are complaining that it’s bad in a way or another. Learn to be satisfied with what you already have.

What do I ask for?

I’m only expecting stable Internet, with less ping timeout to anywhere. The latency (or lag) cannot be prevented. 4 or 5 (or even 6) years ago when I first subscribed to TMNet Streamyx, can you imagine that I was unable to connect to certain IPs due to the incomplete route? Things definitely have improved.

I’ll ask for more speed when I know they can afford to provide. For now, I’m satisfied with 1Mbps. Oh, and I just upgraded from 512kbps to 1Mbps, which I feel is around the same, no much difference.

The government is already slowly moving into IPv6 from IPv4. What else can I ask for?

I guess the main reason why I don’t even step on Friendster is because this pisses me off. I find it really irritating when I have to switch to my own language everytime I visit the site (in the past), until one day I decided that I shouldn’t even bother looking at it.

I travel and stay around quite a fair bit between Singapore and Malaysia for the past few years. Recently, I was really disappointed by Singtel’s Mobile Broadband and that caused me not to be able to surf much in Singapore as I wasn’t  even able to multitask by surfing 2 websites at 1 go.  It’s that serious. Now I’ve got M1 Mobile Broadband, and it isn’t any better too. I’ll do a review about it another day — but you know it’s not going to be a good review. But seriously speaking, TMNet Streamyx performs way better than the damn Mobile Broadbands I got in terms of stability. Ok, thats not the point.

Speaking about languages, English has been my primary language since young and that makes Chinese my mother tongue. I don’t get to learn Malay (Or Bahasa) in school and thats why until today I’m no good at the language.

We’ve got facebook right now, and it’s doing way better in terms of surfing experience. Importantly, they don’t select a damn default language for me by my IP Address.

Good bye Friendster. Any other sites that make me read Malay as my default language, I’ll say good bye to you too. [Webmasters, get this into your brains please.]

If you’ve yet to subscribe to TMNet Streamyx at home or your office and you’re reading this, you found the right article. This article shall bring you through what you might start ranting about in the future.

I got a message from someone on Windows Live Messenger (aka MSN!):

[email protected] says:
Small Favour Needed

Please help me to perform speed test on this URL

http://66.96.192.92/bigtest.tgz

Let me know what’s the speed you are getting, Internet connection speed
and ISP.

Eg: TMnet Streamyx, 1 Mbps plan, getting 100 kb/s

Thank you.

This message started me thinking.

I do know of almost 50% of my peers using Streamyx telling me that their Internet speed isn’t of satisfaction. I never ever complained that my Internet is slow. It’s totally fine to have slow Internet, but I need something stable. TMNet has done well with regards to this. *Cheers*

Before you start complaining…

1. Read Streamyx’s FAQ! Point #5 states that “Best effort” describes a service that is provided without any service level assurance. Now you see, what you get is what you should get. Complaining probably won’t improve your Internet. So stop ranting.
2. Also read the Fair Use Policy! We wish to also highlight that as an Internet Service Provider (ISP), TM only provides access to the Internet and does not guarantee content delivery and performance where it is not within the domain of TM as an ISP. In fact, our international traffic management policy is designed to cater for all our customers so they have an optimal surfing experience within the normal limits of Internet usage.

Let me simply explain what you should understand from the above text.

You should understand that you may not get the speed you subscribed and paid for unless you’re surfing www.tm.net.my/www.streamyx.com. I hope  I am right. Please correct me.

Do a speed test before you start calling over to 1300-88-9515/100 and start asking them why your Internet so slow.

This is the 5th day I couldn’t connect to the Internet on a 3G connection. Terribly disappointing.

I seriously wonder if I’m the only person complaining about this problem. If not, why do they sound as if they don’t know what’s going on. Or maybe they’re trying to hide the problem and make it sound as if there’s no problem and its just your fault. Whatever.

I called up SingTel customer support. Pressed 1 for English, Keyed in my number 9XXXXXXX followed by #. Then pressed 0 to speak to Customer Service, and pressed 3 for other matters. This is how familiar I am now. Learn it. Next, when someone picks up and says who he/she is, you need to tell him or her your problem, identify yourself (owner of the line & IC number). How hard can this be? “Ok Mr So and so, thanks for verifying.”

Now you describe your problem. I couldn’t connect to my Broadband on Mobile. I could get the 3G Signal, but just its stated connection failed. Without fail, if this is the first time you’re calling regarding this, they will tell you to do a restart of your USB modem when you know obviously the problem doesn’t lie there.

Improvement #1: Customer Service offers need a much more flexible guidance book in front of them.

After that, they explain that for Broadband on Mobile, it’s actually on Shared bandwidth, thus you may be experiencing lag. Yes we all know. But I paid for nothing?

Improvement #2: Don’t oversell.

But again, that isn’t my problem. I cannot even connect in. Damn. Changing the APN won’t help too. Lastly the officer told me to switch to a GSM network (without 3G) – NarrowBand on Mobile.

Good job done: You found me a way to get onto the Internet which I cannot even load my Gmail.

I am making a guess. Did the problem just happened because you’re having some network or hardware failure which you cannot fix in time and thus you’re trying hide and not let us know?

Improvement #3: I don’t know, but I hope when you got a problem, at least let us know. We can be really considerate since we know it isn’t permanent.

If not, please unsubscribe me from this service and waive all the rest of my fees. I am not going to pay any penalty since I didn’t enjoy the service at all. I didn’t even utilise it to any extent!

Improvement #4: Don’t let us pay for nothing, especially when you got a service downtime, go by some SLA that waives our fees for the day or week. Learn it from some web hosting companies. In fact, they provide 100x better service.

Now, proposals to hire me go to my e-mailbox (felix[at]ker.sg). I should be able to help you improve. At least I think from a client’s perspective.

Improvement #5: I don’t sleep at 12am. And I always encounter problems after 12am. You need a team on too. Don’t tell me you are trying to cut costs too? 12-8am is another shift. Make more jobs. The government will love you more.

Now good night.

Before I start on this entry, I wish to say that this is my personal experience for the past few months using this service.

Introduction

I am staying at a rented room with my sister and thus we thought that we’re not going to register for wired Internet. Instead, we should just get SingTel’s Mobile Broadband (Mobile 1000).

Someday, some months back, we went down to SingTel at Bugis. Wow, when you sign a two year plan, you get the HSDPA modem (Huawei or Samsung) free. Free registration. Blah blah. We always love promotions, right? And so we signed up (Yes, 24 months contract).

First two months

First two months was ok. Decent bandwidth that I can get. I mean, pages don’t take very long to load. The latency is not that bad.

Now

1. MSN cannot connect. This is crap. Totally unacceptable.
2. Tibia (MMORPG) lags like hell. I logged in and tried to walk. I couldn’t even walk at all. I would lag for the next 60 seconds and get booted off for no packets sent/received. Damn it. You shall pay for what I paid CIP Soft.
3. Websites don’t load at all. Not even SingTel.com. Don’t even think about browsing facebook.com.
4. Emails not readable/reply-able. I cannot even get on the Internet smoothly, how can I read and reply my emails smoothly?
5. Think I can blog?

What can I do?

1. Get home, rest, shower and do face mask. After so much stress and sleeping late because the Internet tends to be not so bad after 12am.
2. I called SingTel 3 times in 2 weeks. I am still not getting any reply from their technical team regarding this shit.
3. Watch Hot Shot (篮球火). It entertained me for 1 hour.

Screw SingTel. I’m just bored. Internet sucks and I can’t do much.

SingTel, I want..

1. Waiver for my Internet bill for the past 2 months and current. (I paid them already, thinking it will improve)
2. Termination of contract.
3. Compensate me for my time (having to sleep late to use Internet)
4. Compensate me for my loss in not being able to get onto Tibia. You’re going to pay for my premium account.

If you’re using SingTel Broadband on Mobile..

I’d like to know how’s your Internet. Comments please.