Telcos Step Up Broadband Game

As the communications regulatory body continues to keep a watchful eye on the state of high speed home broadband, service providers have stepped up their game by offering faster response when issues arise and better service overall.

Telekom Malaysia (TM), which recently suffered a series of cable damages due to vandalism and construction work, started a Twitter hashtag #unifiAlerts to announce service disruption.

It even tweets pictures to show the extent of the damage and fixes the problem in a day. This helped it earn sympathy from users.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said that Malaysia rose 10 spots to No. 26 in the Global Speedtest Index for Internet speed.

The country now enjoys an average speed of 61.97Mbps, which is higher than the global average of 50.88Mbps.

Unifi subscribers can also now check the status of their Turbo upgrade, and those who have been upgraded can check if their existing equipment can support the faster speeds.

If you have an outdated modem and router, TM will offer to replace the modem for free, while there are three choices for routers.

You can get the router replaced and installed for free but you will be tied to a two-year contract; alternatively you can purchase a router from TM for RM188.68 (with free installation), or buy your own and handle the installation yourself.

This offer can be found by logging on to the Unifi website (unifi.com.my) and clicking on your username displayed on the top right hand corner. In the menu that appears, select Turbo Status.

TM’s Turbo upgrade will bump up 20Mbps (megabits per second) or lower subscribers to 100Mbps, 30Mbps to 300Mbps, 50Mbps to 500Mbps, and 100Mbps to 800Mbps – and it has been rushing to upgrade as many users as possible by the end of the year.

Celcom, which only offers home broadband in Sabah, and Time said they have already upgraded all their customers.

Maxis said the company has received about 100,000 signups from new and existing customers for the MaxisOne Home Fibre plan.

“In view of this high volume, we ramped up our resources to speed up installation and upgrading processes,” a spokesman said.

The full implementation of the Mandatory Standard on Access Pricing (MSAP) for home broadband packages in June resulted in a reduction of more than 30% in broadband prices, according to the MCMC.

The latest player to lower prices is Astro Maxis IPTV, which lowered the fee of all its plans to RM89 from RM248 a month and set the speed at 30Mbps this month. – The Star