Malaysia Broadband Comparison

Close to over a decade ago, a time when local calls were (nearly) free and i could logon to local BBS at 9.6kbps the whole night playing LORD, through the days when the Internet required Trumpet Winsock, to the bittorrents and youtube net life of today, i’ve pretty much stayed with TMNet as my ISP. Since it’s raya break and i’ve got time to burn i’m giving another local broadband provider a spin.

P1 is PacketOne, a subsidiary of greenpacket, which recently premier-ed WIMAX services in Malaysia. The WIMAX device offered is a black square brick, small enough for a home but probably not one for carrying around. Experience is pretty much plug and play, which i gathered means the device is pre-configured when i signed up with P1. So, on to the tests -

 Test #1 – Speeding Around the World … technically.

A comparison of speedtest.net results -

For streamyx i could barely get the London server to start and it crawled to the result above. In any case even if it’s 1MB vs 1.2MB it’s obvious who’s the clear winner. Speed test can vary but no matter how you see it, Streamyx is just pure congested and nearly twice as slow for me.
Winner : P1 w1max

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Test #2 – Download a file on the web

64MB Apple iTunes download at http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

P1 W1MAX 1.2MB	8 min 23 sec
TMNet Streamyx 1MB	35 min 25 sec

Consistent with Test 1, the P1 download was over 4x faster. 

Winner : P1 w1max

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Test #3 – Streaming on youtube

Loading a ~5 minute clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHO1JTNPPOU

P1 W1MAX 1.2MB	1 min 29 sec
TMNet Streamyx 1MB	2 min 37 sec

Youtube streaming on Streamyx has often been choppy. So much so that it’s common practise among my friends to press pause, make coffee, fry an egg and take a bath before streaming the vid. Your results might vary but i have to say streaming on the P1 line was great.

Winner : P1 w1max

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Test #4 – Bittorrent

Download a 25MB torrent at http://beta.legaltorrents.com/get/190-vhs-recall

Below is a snapshot of a 25MB download in utorrent, give and take 10kB/s to the Down Speed. This is on a fresh install of utorrent – no tweaking of any settings. It’s common knowledge that TMNet bandwidth throttle on torrents.

P1 W1MAX 1.2MB	4 min 11 sec	~110kB/s Down
TMNet Streamyx 1MB	29 min 45 sec	~15kB/s Down

Winner : P1 w1max

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Test #5 – Pricing and Bundles

With P1 you’re getting 1.2Mbps/500Kbps for RM99 at 12-month contract and RM89 at 24-Month contract

With Streamyx you’re getting 1.0Mbps/384Kbps for RM88 no modem without contract. Synergies with Celcom means that bundles such as the recent Home, Hop and Away plans are hard to beat to value for a Mobile/Fixed Broadband combo.

Winner : TMNet Streamyx

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Test #6 – Network Stability

NOW HERE IS THE CATCH. When i first brought back the box and placed it where my PC usually sits, it can’t even negotiate a connection. Bring it closer to my front door and window, it flies. WIMAX, typical of any wireless solution like HSDPA, is susceptible to the usual interference and constraints of your house. You cannot beat a physical copper line. Although i’ve expected it, it is nevertheless dissapointing when you hit a red light(literally on the modem). On the bright side, P1 does offer a 15 day money back guarantee.

Winner : TMNet Streamyx

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Verdict

You really can’t take the results above as yours because simply, it is my results with my constraints. The age of your copper line, your distance to the nearest DSLAM, network congestion and even which floor you are in pretty much defines which may be the best service to go for.

If you can spend a bit more, don’t mind fiddling with the WIMAX modem placing (assuming coverage is decent in your area) and is comfortable with setting up wireless network devices to compensate, P1 can be a good alternative mainly due to it’s (current) low congestion and the imminent rise of centrino 2 in every intel powered notebook. If you’ve got a fixed line or maybe even a celcom line, TM has got great value for money HSDPA/ADSL bundles and is probably more foolproof to set up.

While the competition’s great, Broadband in Malaysia is sadly still too darn expensive. We’ll need to wait a while longer for the promises of WIMAX, Mobile Broadband and HSBB/HSBT to break down the price barriers and all these term contract non-sense that just ties us down. On an end note, most ISPs around the world has already implemented capped bandwidth plans and bandwidth throttling. So you have to count your blessings sometimes if you’re a torrent-addict and bandwidth hogger. For the rest of us it’s irrelevant. All we’re asking for is for a speedier and more pleasant internet experience – and of course – a lot cheaper.

Winner : Poor You and Me (Hopefully)