All these local ISPs tend to use cheap routers to supply to their customer. I see Thomson have higher range products which are used by likes of PCCW etc. I've checked with engineers of TM and Maxis, their procurement budgets looks at routers in the range of RM100++. What do you expect to get at this price? Crappy stuff of course..

At the end of the day, users need to fork a couple hundred RMs to get better user experience. I don't blame the vendors, I blame the ISPs to even cut cost for an important device even though they are charging premium price for Internet speeds which are not comparable to even our neighboring countries.

I acknowledge USD is the standard, so every ISP (local or neighboring country) is dealing in USD, then why the difference is service and equipment quality and package pricing between our local ISPs and neighboring country ISPs?

Let's take Starhub for example, consider them 2nd position ISP in SG. Fibre broadband 100Mbps is about 50SGD. That is still cheaper compared to Maxis 10Mbps even after conversion to RM. If they too buy fibre equipments in USD, why they are able to provide better packages, services and equipment at cheaper price?