• Why I’m not interested in Streamyx high-speed broadband internet

Telekom Malaysia launched a couple of high-speed broadband packages two week ago. I didn’t bother to find out much because I’m certain the initial services won’t be rolling out in my area anytime soon. Another reason for my ignorance is I absolutely have zero faith in TM’s “best effort” quality of service.

Admittedly, it’s the money first and foremost. What TM promises in these new packages seem pretty fast compared to my 1.5Mbps, which IMO should be labelled narrow-band instead. But the extra speed comes at a price. I cannot imagine paying RM250 per month for home internet access, regardles how fast it is. Your mileage may vary but most of my family and friends share my thought. We may be middle class citizens but RM250/mth for personal home broadband internet is a bit stiff. If for business or company, that’s different.

I’ve been in IT for more than a decade and used Streamyx 512Kbps, 1Mbps and 1.5Mbps since 2002. I can say for certain 1.5Mbps is enough for 99% of what I do. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t want 10Mbps. What I really want is smooth and stable broadband access. Streamyx fails big time in that respect. That is why I’m hardly excited to read about those new high-speed broadband packages by Streamyx.

Their latest marketing hype says you can now watch Youtube without hiccups. Mind you, at 1.5Mbps we are already capable of watching Youtube clips without any interruptions. If only Streamyx can guarantee continuous streaming speed of 1.5Mbps 99% of the time. Which in reality, is far from happening.

That aside, my biggest dissatisfaction is this. Imagine every evening, from 8pm to 12am, internet speed slows down to a crawl. Websites take ages to load. Some don’t even load at all. Disconnection happens frequently between these few hours. That’s what I’m experiencing with Streamyx in my area and I sincerely hope you are better off than me.

I have only one thing to say to Streamyx. If you can’t even ensure smooth and stable internet access at narrow-band speed after all these years, don’t boast about high-speed 10Mpbs broadband internet. Iron out all the over-subscription and stability problems first, then only talk about higher speed internet.

Monopoly sucks.