Celcom Broadband

Remember the prize I got from CIMB? I finally got it on 13th April 2009.

They sent me the modem and a cheque. Phew… Luckily they sent the modem because the modem is so expensive. If they only sent me the cheque then I really don’t know whether I should use this service or not as I will have to fork out more than RM300 for a modem to use for one year only. I checked Celcom’s site and it stated that the modem is RM499 or RM799 for original price.

The monthly fee for the broadband isn’t cheap too, RM98/month for 3.6Mbps, at least my one year usage fee is covered. Still… Forking out such money for just the modem really not worth it at all.

Here’s the modem. It can also be used as thumbdrive but I don’t think it’s worth it to buy the micro SD because it’s so expensive! I rather just buy a normal thumbdrive with very big space.

I do not plan to extend after that because I don’t need it at all. Even if I do go traveling, I can easily get free wifi everywhere nowadays. Besides, I won’t spend much time online when I go traveling, having it is just a matter of being convenient to get connected such as in the comfort of your room or anywhere or anytime.

I went to get it activated on 14/4/2009 at Blue Cube, tHe Spring. The people there got quite blurred on what to do and I was also blurred on what I should do that time. Should I pay to activate or not? Luckily I brought the letter from CIMB along and finally they said I don’t have to pay anything. That’s right, you shouldn’t be required to pay for your prize.

After filling in all the forms, they told me I should be able to use it the next day but I didn’t bother to test it out the next day. My bro tested it out with his PC but got no signal at all. We thought they haven’t activate for us so I didn’t bother as it’s free, I was also busy with a project too. I only tried it on 16/4/2009.

When I first tried it out, I got signal but it was very unstable. My MSN got disconnected for don’t know how many times. Once connected, it got disconnected without any chance to let me even see who’s online. It kept switching from one service to another.

I didn’t bother to connect to MSN. I just surfed around with it because only surfing could be done. After one hour later, I tried to connect my MSN and finally there’s no disconnection. It was stable all the way with the auto switching between 3G, GPRS and HSDPA but no disconnection.

The picture you see here is the speed when I was uploading a 30MB+ file and light surfing in my living room, quite an isolated section in the house. Streamyx would take a while only. With this, it took me more than 50 minutes! I kept checking on the uploading because I’m so not use to having such slow upload after many years of using Streamyx.

I’m not saying that Streamyx is good and Celcom broadband is bad as they are two different things. Fixed and wired line is always better than wireless for sure because wireless have to depend on the surrounding and coverage. If coverage is good, then you get good service.

If you are using it at quite an isolated area, the signal is really weak. My bro’s computer totally cannot use Celcom Broadband at all because of the computer location which even mobile phone signal isn’t very good there. Basically, if you have good signal on your mobile phone at one place, this is the best place for you to use wireless broadband.

I tried it in my room which is less isolated and the signal of HSDPA was excellent. I managed to stream some videos on You Tube. Don’t ask me the speed because I forgot to track. If I’m using it in the living room, the signal kept changing from between 3G, GPRS and HSDPA.

The limit of monthly data usage is 5GB, once you reach 5GB, your speed will be reduced for the rest of the month. 5GB is very limited I would say.

The package you take also depends very much on your area because some places only have 3G or GPRS. HSDPA is still not widely available yet and I’m lucky that my area has all 3 of them.

I can’t really give you a good review in this as I never use any other broadband except Streamyx and now Celcom. In fact I’m not fully on Celcom Broadband because when I have big files to download or upload I have to switch back to Streamyx.

Celcom Broadband is just another option for mobile internet to me but I think it might be better than Maxis or Digi because I heard a lot of complains from some friends such as the line can be slower than a dial-up connection and very unstable.

Should you get it or not? If only when you move around a lot and no fixed line at home.