08 August 2009

Maxis Broadband

My wife and I recently subscribed to Maxis Broadband (BB). She's been using it for 2 weeks now and so far so good. I've read some pretty bad reviews on Maxis' BB service but to me the package suits me better compared to Celcom.

We opted for the 6GB package with the new USB drive which can reach download speed of 7.2 Mbps. The montly fee would be RM138 and a one off processing fee of RM 100. However we got RM30 discount because there was a PC Fair promotion and I am a postpaid user. The USB drive comes with the package. They say there's no strings attached but that's soooo UN-MAXIS. As you all probably know, there's always strings attached with Maxis. There's a 12 months contract (the agent say its NOT a contract) whereby if you discontinue the service you have to return the USB drive to a Maxis center and pay RM 200. Its some sort of a penalty. The good news is you have a 7 day trial period.

My wife say the service in Taiping fluctuates. Sometimes it is really fast sometimes too slow. But I'm not sure if the speed is affected by her ASUS Eee PC which can get frustrating to use. In Ipoh, the speed is good enough for surfing. I tried the online speed test (http://speed.p1.com.my/) and the maximum download speed was 2.1 Mbps. It was good enough for me. I have been warned by the Maxis BB dealer that it shouldn't be used for downloading movies though but my wife missed that part and withing 2 weeks has used up to 2GB!

I will try to update on our experience of using Maxis BB from time to time. In the meantime here are the reasons why I chose Maxis BB.

1. The package - PC Fair discount (RM 20) and postpaid user discount (RM 10)
2. Package price depends on the quota instead of speed (Celcom). As far as I know the download and upload speed depends on the location. It does not make sense to me to pay for 3.6 Mbps and end up in a location with only 360kbps as I tend to travel alot.
3. 'Free' modem - not really free but for a penalty of RM200, its almost the same price as a modem from Celcom.

Please be reminded that I am not paid by Maxis and I do not have any interest with the company. Do share your BB experience with us.

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