evop

What are the JB broadband internet options?

unify gets good reviews but is hardly available anywhere.
streamyx is what I was trying to sign up for but so far it has failed numerous times :-( so I am looking for other options

Maxis seems to hardly be available anywhere (same for their fiber offering)

P1 wifi is decent but suffers wifi problems of low latency (also bandwidth caps)
P1 also "offers" fiber though hardly anywhere

Customer support across the board seems to be very bad. Very short hours. No responses. Poor IM [Instant Message] (the solutions just fail or are unstaffed) - 3PM on a work day: "Hi, We're sorry to inform that this sales chat is currently unavailable. Kindly proceed to http://www.p1.com.my/contactus/defau...focus=salesenq to submit your enquiry and we will get back to you within 3 working days." etc.. :-( 3 hours is unacceptable for an IM substitute, forget 3 working days. Obviously these are not companies very interested in customers.

It is amazing to me the poor internet solutions available. Even brand new (completed this year) luxury condos don't offer fiber. That is not going to help an area make the case it is suited for 21st century business.

Froggybarnacle2000

Hello evop!

I managed to find this post below that I made last 17th December 2012. We have Unifi here at Taman Tengku Molek, and it is absolutely the best! We have had no problems at all:

Re: Broadband connection
Hi there, just an update: We ended up getting Unifi and not Maxis fibre internet installed in our home. I did not get a call from Maxis within the days after I paid the deposit on 28th Oct. So around the 2nd week of November, I called Customer Service in KL, and based on their records, they claimed they called me. But I never got a call from them, either on my Malaysia or Singapore mobile phones. What's worse, they terminated my contract (which is funny because I hadn't even started using them!) since I was unreachable and they said I had to re-apply. I found that really off-putting, so I told them I would go back to the centre where I put in my application and just get my RM500 deposit back. I got a refund on the 3rd Dec. The front office was apologetic about the situation, he said there are only 3 Maxis fibre internet installers for Johor Bahru! Finally found the Unifi website on the 16th of November...and it couldn't have been easier to apply! I filled out the form and applied online, and believe it or not someone from Unifi called us the very next morning to ask if we wanted to advance our 4th Dec installation to the 1st Dec instead! This was so not like Maxis, where we were at their complete and utter mercy... The difference in price was negligible at this point- Unifi charges RM199 compared to Maxis' RM168 for 10 mbps. The Unifi installers promptly arrived on the date we requested and it took them 2 hours to get our internet up and running at home. So far so good, we are very happy with Unifi's capabilities. I am now a certified Unifi fan, and would recommend it to anyone moving to JB!!!

geedee

Hi Evop. 100% agree! The internet "options" here are archaic at best, unless you live in the one or two streets that have fibre.

We ended up with Maxis Home Wi-Fi when we found our landline couldn't support more than 1mbs. We thought 48Gb per month was a good start... however, 36 of those Gb can only be used between 0200 and 0800.

We tried to go onto the slow 1mbs TM "service" but found out our cable is broken. 3 weeks later, we have seen exactly zero technicians around to fix it.

I read somewhere that Malaysia is near the top of the tree for connectivity.... absolute rubbish!

Anyone thinking of renting (or if you're rich, buying) in Leisure Farm.... beware. A couple of streets have fibre, but most of us don't. Our connections are like dial-up in the 90's, or extremely expensive. And as Evop says, customer "service" is abysmal. I have to top up bandwidth nearly every day (2Gb doesn't go far!) and 50% of the time my attempts are "unsuccessful".

And Asia is the new economic powerhouse.... God help us all!

evop

Remember Japan, Hong Kong and Korea have outstanding internet connectivity (the best in the world). So, some countries are being smart about 21st century infrastructure and in fact 3 in Asia are at the top of the list (Scandinavia makes up the other enclave of smart investing in IT - Google [Google Fiber] may well push the USA out of shadow of its poorly regulated broadband that has left the USA far behind the leaders the last 15 years).

http://econintersect.com/b2evolution...-speed-ranking

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24426739

Lack of understanding that 21st century infrastructure needs to have extremely reliable, extremely fast internet is a big problem for any economy that hopes to compete going into the next few decades. One of the sensible measures any business can view of how committed a country is to business development is looking at the high speed internet connectivity. JB does not fare well in this light.

Maybe we can convince Google to put Google Fiber in JB :-) I know we can't but we can dream :-)

Building luxury condos, bungalows... without fiber today is like building new luxury homes in 1930 without thinking of the automobile (in the USA and Europe - it was a bit later before the auto would dominate elsewhere). It is more obvious that high speed internet connectivity is a requirement today than it was cars were going to dominate urban planning in 1930.

geedee

Hi Evop.

I wasn't just referring to the abysmal internet. More the customer service, attitude, getting things done and innovation. They seem to be alien concepts out here! I don't think I've met so many inept people in one place before!