How Fast Is Your Internet Connection?

Want to watch your favourite TV shows on your computer or laptop? Yoonic has just launched its first nationwide broadband TV service and it’s free for now. This sounds good because all you need to do is download Yoonic player software and you can have access to over 50 channels.

Goodbye to Astro? Wait! Not so fast!

It all depends on how fast is your Streamyx broadband connection.

And believe it or not, my Streamyx broadband is currently slower than dial up! No kidding.

I really do not know if I’m alone or everyone else is suffering from this recent phenomenon.

When I first signed up for Streamyx broadband many years ago, it was a huge relief because I was frustrated with the slow dial up service provided by Jaring. I mean, how to surf the web when every click of the mouse entailed you to wait for no less than 2 minutes?

With Streamyx, it was a breeze. I could surf countless websites, log into my emails and download stuffs without much effort or should I say, waiting.

Unfortunately, that’s no more the case today. It took ages for me to log into my Gmail account. It took ages to watch a YouTube video with countless buffering taking place. And it took ages for my blog to appear on the screen so much so that I did not bother to write any new post for the past 1 week.

And you want me to watch TV on my computer?

I laughed out loud when I read somewhere that the Government is planning to increase the broadband penetration rate in Malaysia.

No doubt, Malaysia’s broadband penetration stands at only 16 percent of households, compared to an amazing 93 percent in South Korea or 80 percent in Hong Kong. 10 years ago, both these countries had only below 10 percent penetration rate.

The question I want to ask is how is the Malaysian Government going about increasing the penetration rate when TM (Telekom Malaysia), the Streamyx provider is monopolizing the market? Without much competition, it is no wonder that their service is below standard.

Also, TM is still using copper infrastructure when it should upgrade to fiber networks like what countries like Japan and South Korea had done.

But the main reason for the slow broadband uptake must be the very expensive subscription cost. I’m currently paying RM88 per month for Streamyx which offers a speed of only 1Mbps (megabit per second).

Compared to Japan which cost only about RM2 monthly per Mbps, don’t you think we are overpaying for our broadband connection? Most other countries do not charge more than RM6 per Mbps, so I have to say Malaysia have one of the most, if not the most expensive broadband connection in the world!

You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure out that we are paying more than 10 times higher than most other countries. And we are all making such a big fuss over the petrol price hike!

Not only that. Many countries are already offering speed up to 10Mbps or higher and we are still stuck with the dinosaur era of 1Mbps!

Streamyx recently offered 4Mbps broadband but with a ridiculous price tag of RM268 per month. Tell me who can afford that! Even if you are loaded, would you want to pay that kind of price when it merely costs RM24 or less in other countries?

Now if I cannot log into my Gmail account at 1Mbps, I have no choice but to conclude that Streamyx sucks big time!