I came across a blog posting at www.jeffooi.com on comparisons between broadband services in Malaysia and Singapore today while attending training on Oracle (hehehe.. I was bored :) ). Even though the topic is a bit outdated (posted on 27 April 2006), I still find the issue very much relevant even today.

For somebody whose knowledge on broadband technologies are more towards (1) able to connect to the internet (and stay connected), and (2) get results fast (be it surfing or downloading), it is quite obvious that, despite the progress made in Malaysia on broadband technology over the years, the services still cannot compare to the ones offered in Singapore.

I did some browsing on the broadband packages offered by TMNet (Streamyx) and SingTel, and here’s what I came up with:

SingTel TMNet Maxis Comparison

I shouldn’t probably compare Maxis with the other two but since I’m currently subscribed to Maxis (the RM 98 package), I might as well put it in.

If any of you are from Maxis, please be informed that the speed I’ve been getting since day one are disgustingly low. They barely reached 500 Kbps. In fact, I just measured the speed and McAfee gave me 20 Kbps. ZDNet gave me 29 Kbps. Like, hello??!!!

One other thing to note, TMNet prices do not include the monthly telephone charges. So that’s roughly another RM25 to add to the prices. I also had a peek at Jaring’s packages and honestly, they’re not worth mentioning.

The comparison clearly shows that Malaysia has a lot of catching up to do to be at par with Singapore. To be fair, please do not convert the currencies when comparing. Otherwise it would not be apple to apple now, would it?

I am not going to go into the reasons for these differences. You know.. geography, economy of scale, technology, blah blah blah… Not that I know exactly what the reasons are.. but I do recommend that you read the discussions following the blog post at www.jeffooi.com. They really really are interesting. Not to mention, quite amusing too. They make me think of going to all those countries and do some research on the issue. But then, there are other people better qualified to do that. So I leave it to them solve the puzzle. Besides, I’m just too lazy. And simply can’t afford it. Hehehe…

AY: Still dreaming of the day when he can surf the internet at the speed of 10 Mbps, without costing him his arms and legs.

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