TM UniFi High Speed Broadband Project International Comparison

Back in September 2008, MCMC awarded the High Speed Broadband Project (HSBB) of the country to none other than TM. Fast forward to March 2010, TM announced and launched their high speed broadband packages. While it was met with instant online news coverage by bloggers, its come under fire by the heavy-users of broadband.

Note, if you visit the UniFi website, make sure you’ve got the www prefix. They didn’t make it work without it. Phbt.

Okay. So here are the plans being offered for the high speed broadband project by TM.

Package	Download/Upload speed	Monthly Data	Monthly Price (RM)
VIP 5	5Mbps	60GB	149.00
VIP 10	10Mbps	90GB	199.00
VIP 20	20Mbps	120GB	249.00

Now, let’s have a look at the broadband packages in Singapore. They’re in the midst of developing their high speed broadband, but these standard broadband packages will do.

ISP	Download/Upload speed	Monthly Data	Monthly Price (SGD)
Singtel	10Mbps / 1Mbps	Unlimited	56.90
Starhub	8Mbps / 1.2Mbps	Unlimited	81.32

I took the packages which comes closest to our high speed broadband packages based on the download/upload rate and monthly price.

Next, we’ve Australia. Who’s deployed their high speed broadband as ADSL2+ packages. Though weirdly when I was looking at their packages, providers are now promoting naked broadband packages. Not sure what’s that about.

ISP	Download/Upload speed	Monthly Data	Monthly Price (AUD)
Bigpond	20Mbps / 1Mbps	50GB	109.95

Many other Australian ISPs weren’t included because most stated speeds as ADSL2+ rather than the average numbers.

Nonetheless, this is enough information for me to write my point. Are our high speed broadband packages offered by TM fair and equivalent?

I don’t want to look at Malaysia as some 3rd world country. Therefore, I would look at the prices dollar for dollar. Not to mention, you do get what you pay for, especially in Australia.

Personally, if the government really wants to push the national broadband plan, readjust all the broadband plans for crying out loud!

This is what I told my friend in the car when discussing about UniFi and current broadband plans:

The new 5Mbps UniFi plan should be RM88 (though I expected it to be no more than RM100). Then, they should make the 1Mbps packages the minimum speeds for anything below that.

Yes, there are users who don’t use the Internet as much. But, they also don’t want to waste their time waiting for a website to load. Think about it. Faster loads can get things done much faster later. Even the lady at the wet market can answer her email orders more efficiently and get back to chopping heads of fish much quicker.

Broadband internet shouldn’t be a commodity but a necessity by now.

P.S.: Why bundle something your real market knows they’re not interested in? Did the market research go wrong? Or, are you cashing in?

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