New Broadband Plans Arrive; Here’s What You Need To Know

It’s finally happened. The government’s Mandatory Standards on Access Pricing (MSAP) has forced internet service providers to reduce home broadband prices. This is fantastic news for people like you. So where do you start looking?

The Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission issued a statement covering the changes seen in the ISP landscape, highlighting its success in bringing prices down while also increasing average broadband speeds. All this without having to implement any sort of data quotas to control bandwidth usage.

Because of this, Malaysians in the Klang Valley are now spoiled for choice when it comes to broadband. We’ve compiled a list of the latest broadband plans just for you.

Maxis

Maxis was the first ISP to announce its updated post-MSAP plans. The move forced other internet providers to react to its reduced subscription rates while benefiting from being the first to market. Of course, this also allowed the competition to adjust their own plans to compensate. But the price reduction across the board can only benefit consumers.

MaxisOne Home
	Price	Max Download Speed	Max Upload Speed
MaxisOne Home 30Mbps	RM89	30Mbps	30Mbps
MaxisOne Home 100Mbps	RM129	100Mbps	50Mbps

The biggest change to Maxis’ plans is that the company has narrowed down its offerings to only two packages. Both plans are much lower than what most Malaysians are used to paying for home broadband.

That said, there has been no information about existing users being upgraded to the new packages and subscribers have to make the change on their own. However, there is a catch as switching plans only really works once the initial two-year contract has expired or else users will face the RM500 cancellation fee.

TM UniFi

Telekom Malaysia has the widest broadband coverage across Malaysia. Because of this, you are most likely to be on a UniFi line. Especially if you’re located outside of the Klang Valley. For better or for worse, TM has taken a two-pronged approach to complying with the MSAP.

The first approach is to upgrade all existing UniFi customers through its UniFi Turbo programme. This move will give all its customers a speed boost of up to 10x what they are currently experiencing. For example, 10Mbps users will be bumped up to 100Mbps, while 30Mbps lines will go up to 300Mbps. The only exception is for UniFi 100 users who will see their connections go from 100Mbps to 800Mbps.

Rolling out the upgrade has been slow work as only a handful of customers have reportedly received the speed boost in the two months since it was first announced. Even then, the actual download speeds are nowhere near what is being promised.

Part 2 of TM’s approach is through introducing brand new UniFi plans. These replace the existing UniFi plans, and still come with the additional mandatory subscription to UniFi TV (formerly known as HyppTV).

UniFi
	Price	Max Download Speed	Max Upload Speed
UniFi Basic	RM79	30Mbps (60GB quota)	5Mbps
UniFi Pro 100	RM129	100Mbps	50Mbps

A few caveats apply to the UniFi offerings. First of all, these plans are only available to new customers which means that those looking to switch over will need to cancel their existing subscriptions and submit a fresh application. Considering TM’s rather harsh penalties for early cancellation, this may not be the best option for those still locked into their two-year contracts.

The second caveat is that UniFi Basic is only available through TM’s own channels. What this means is that signing up has to be done at official TM Point locations, and not through any dealer. This greatly limits the plans’ accessibility to the general public.

Finally, there is UniFi Basic’s low data quota. The 60GB monthly data quota is barely sufficient for a household these days, considering that even mobile data plans offer 40GB these days. And that’s for a single phone. Imagine a family of four trying to survive on just 60GB.

The fact that UniFi throttles connections down to 124kbps once the limit is hit can be a big drawback.

Acknowledging the low data quota, TM has introduced a programme to bring its Streamyx customers up to speed with UniFi users. This includes a free upgrade to UniFi (where available) or simply providing speed upgrade across the board.

Time Fibre

As the last ISP to announce new products, Time had the benefit of watching the competition and then adjusting its offerings to match. That may not exactly be accurate but Time has revealed some of the most competitively priced broadband packages ever seen in Malaysia. Including the country’s first ever gigabit connection.

Time Fibre
	Price	Max Download Speed	Max Upload Speed
Time Fibre 100	RM99	100Mbps	100Mbps
Time Fibre 500	RM149	500Mbps	500Mbps
Time Fibre 1Gbps	RM199	1Gbps	1Gbps

A gigabit connection is basically more bandwidth than you could possibly ever use, even if you’ve dedicated yourself to only streaming Netflix in 4K while downloading every movie ever made. Even then, you will still have enough bandwidth leftover to watch 8K videos on YouTube at the same time.

Of course, 1Gbps is great for households with heavy internet use which will become more common given the growing number of internet connected household devices. So getting ahead of the curve is not necessarily a bad thing.

The other end of the spectrum is Time’s RM99 offering. This is comparable to both UniFi and Maxis’ cheapest options in terms of price. Yet, it comes with three times the download speed. Needless to say, this is probably the best choice for those shopping for a new internet provider.

With that in mind, Time is still limited to high rise buildings. Having not received permission to service landed property from the government, this is a major complication for those who want a blazing fast internet speed. At present, not all high rise buildings are within Time’s coverage either.

How to ensure you get the speed you paid for

A common complaint is that consumers are not getting the internet speeds for which they are paying. A variety of factors could influence this problem, and it may not always be confined to the ISP.

For instance, your router may be the cause of the problem. Older routers still rely on the 2.4GHz band instead of the newer 5GHz band, limiting their ability to keep up with the offered broadband speeds. In most cases, these routers advertise gigabit speeds but cannot actually meet those specifications in real world use especially if they are only used over wireless connections.

Similarly, wireless connections can deteriorate when having to pass over long distances or through walls. Testing your internet speed while sitting as far away from your router as possible is a good way to waste your time.

Instead, determine if it really is your ISP causing problems by directly connecting your computer to the router with a LAN cable. That should remove any potential WiFi issues and give you the best possible result.

If it’s still problematic, then it’s time to call your ISP support line and report an issue. Any further problems can also be escalated to the MCMC; which has established a multiple ways for the public to report slow and unresponsive internet connections.

In any case, the Communications and Multimedia Ministry has done an admirable job in improving conditions for Malaysians. Internet speeds have risen, while prices have dropped.

Despite this, Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo doesn’t seem to be ready to stop just yet. He has instructed TM to look into how Streamyx is being structured at the moment; with the intention that these users also be brought up to HSBB speeds.

That may take more effort than telling ISPs to get their act together but it’s a good step towards getting high speed internet to all Malaysians.