Torrent Download Speed: Maxis vs. U Mobile vs. StreamyX

In Malaysia, we pay world class price to get 3rd world broadband speed. Oops, sorry, maybe some 3rd world is faster nowadays.

In early days (i think 10+ years ago), there is only 1 broadband service provider, Telekom, one and only one fixed line telephony provider. The broadband product is called StreamyX. Malaysian has no other option.

Later when mobile phone and high speed mobile network penetrate the market, we start to have more option to select: Maxis, P1 4G, Celcom, Digi, Yes 4G and U Mobile. Why do you pay for higher speed broadband? To watch news, online banking transaction, stock trading?

Frankly speaking, there is only 1 reason worth the payment for higher speed broadband, to download files, big size files, such as movies, software, songs and watch streaming video like YouTube.

Let's carry out the download speed test for broadband I have

• Maxis (mobile 3G): RM98 (Voice + Data), data quota is 1.5G.
• U Mobile (mobile 3G): RM88 (Voice + Data), data quota is 3G.
• StreamyX (fixed line): RM60 for 384kbps without data quota.

How well these 3 broadband providers performance in Torrent download?

The testing setup is pretty straight forward: on the broadband services and enable tethering & portable hotspot, connect the laptop to broadband via WIFI and start the same torrent download and monitor the speed.

Samsung S3 using Maxis 3G vs. Sony Xperia Arc using U Mobile 3G

Here are the results:
Maxis


StreamyX


U Mobile


There is no affordable unlimited data quota package from U Mobile and thus still need to pay for StreamyX, will look for alternative when my Maxis contract end.

As a comparison, below is the Singapore broadband speed and torrent download speed.

Maxis Bill: Thing To Take Note!

Maxis is Malaysia biggest mobile network provider with 95% 2G coverage and 81% 3G coverage (quote from Maxis).

Maxis bill statement is one of the most complex statement (I have U Mobile too), it always requires some engineering analysis to fully understand the statement.

Here is my real experience happened 2 weeks ago. I have one main line (635) and one supplementary line (612).

Here is the snapshot of the bill statement:

Total usage (call & SMS) for main line is RM8.68 and RM70.27 for the supplementary line, well everything look normal right?

But wait, both lines "suppose" to have credit sharing and I should not pay extra if my grand total usage does not exceed RM80. So I visited Maxis center and logged a complain to Maxis. 

After investigation they found out that although the wording of my supplementary line matches the Postpaid Plan supplementary line wording - Supp Line (Family Plus) 30, it does not have the correct "setting" in their system which enable credit sharing. It was a mistake by the Seremban Maxis center staff, who "forgot" to change the configuration.

At the end of the story, Maxis enabled the credit sharing for my supplementary line and credit back the extra money I had paid since year 2011. This is one of the best thing for Maxis, their response on money related issue is super responsive!

The moral of the story: always check your bill and try to understand it. You may get some bonus!!