Wifi signals will vary wildly depending on the wall configuration of your place. There will be sweet spots where you can achieve high wifi bandwidth but also black holes where the signal is weakest.

However, the biggest negative impact on the quality of your wifi signal is this - all the other wifi routers/access point around you. In condos, that means that both your wifi router and PC/devices will have to fight with X number of other wifi devices for the same range of radio signals, worse still if your wifi router doesn't have a good algorithm to dynamically change wifi channels so that it doesn't conflict with other wifi users. In a condo environment it is like a very loud restaurant/club - everyone is shouting to be heard over everyone else and you can't really hear what the people at your table are saying...

What you can try to do is to find out what channels other wifi routers are using and configure your wifi router to a channel that isn't used or one that provides you with the best signal strength.

Otherwise look into triple/quad band wifi AC routers but keep in mind that your PC and devices must also be able to speak the same language and be AC and triple/quad band compatible. For PCs, this means adding a Wifi dongle that matches the spec.

I just installed 300Mbps Time in my house on 2nd Apr 2016.

I used direct cable connection and did speed test on Time's own speed test page.

The average I can get is around 260Mbps (down) / 280Mbps (up).

It's the Huawei modem with D-Link DIR-850L.

Is this normal?

Most AC1200 routers can easily get 100 Mbps throughput but it still depends on your wireless environment.

Hi Bro,

Not to worry..this is normal... try to test using different speedtest servers and take a mean.

Thanks.

That's pretty good but DIR-850L should be able to handle full 300mbps. Someone on the Mikrotik thread managed 433mbps on TIME 500 with it.
https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=79327930

I called Time and they told me it's supposed to get around 70-80% of the speed only. On Unifi, my 20Mbps package can get me full 20Mbps.

Then, they told me they only guarantee the speed up to the modem only (even though the router was provided by them) and asked me to speedtest using direct cable connection to the Huawei modem.

I just tried that and no difference. Beginning to wonder whether Time is over promising....

For the same price you are paying to get your 'full' 20Mbps Unifi, you are getting 70-80% of a 300Mbps line, which simple maths well tell you is WAAAYY more than 20Mbps. Even if it was operating at 50% capacity, you're still ahead.

People need to put things into perspective and look at the overall, bigger value-for-money picture.

No, I'm not presently a TIME subscriber, but it is definitely leaning that way once I am convinced that when their subscriber numbers reaches saturation with their new packages, their performance level is still good enough for my home office requirements.

I don't think you are wrong to think that way. Yes, value for money wise, it is way better than TM. But that is using TM to justify the means, which I don't agree.

The fact is, I paid for 300Mbps and I think I should be getting the full speed. Of course, there are stuff like degradation along the cables and etc. But then... if they can offer 500Mbps on the same cable, then I don't see why my speed cannot get full.

If that is the way fibre works where the actual speed is always 80% of the "port" speed, then they should make sure their port is set to 375Mbps. Customer got no control over the quality of fibre cables (which are owned by Time).

I'm not an expert in fibre, but i definitely know that I paid for 300Mbps but I'm only getting 260Mbps.

Do you mind taking a screenshot of your speedtest from the time website?

the speed is kinda good for me

still better to get full 300Mbps

In my experience & opinion as follow:

Facts:
1. When i subscribe for 15Mbps connection Time will give around 17Mbps
2. When i upgrade to 20Mbps Time will give around 22-23Mbps
3. When Time upgrade me to 300Mbps from 20Mbps Time will give 300Mbps and my Speedtest shows max 297 (never above 300)

I realize even when you are using cable, some cable perform less than it claimed to be. perhaps you can try change the cable.

Speedtest results might affected by the speedtest host server & server connection performance.

Try speedtest direct from modem (ensuring no one else or any apps using the net in the background)

Or do the speedtest right after yo ureset the router and modem as soon as the connection back online.


I think they give 100% but what we receive around 85-90% and in my case i receive 98%

This post has been edited by R4yMoNd: Apr 7 2016, 12:32 PM

Poor quality or a degraded LAN cable can affect your speed too or even your NIC.

There is minimal signal drop on fiber. Where the signal drops and noise comes in is between the building switch and your phone line outlet, when this last link is not fiber and is just standard phone cable. You should take a look at your floor's telephony room - it has likely become a jungle of wires with loose connections here and there. Older condos can even have compromised wiring to each apartment and don't forget your own sockets and cables.

Also, no provider will be updating the default firmware on the equipment that they provide, which is something that a savvy user should be doing first thing.

These factors will definitely give you the 80% of bandwidth that is actually useable in any network environment. Do also bear in mind that providing 300mbps over long distance is a different prospect from providing 20mbps - there are different network hardware/hardware protocols and a much higher sensitivity to line noise, since the same pipe is being used to send much more data.

That said, I'd love to see you succeed in getting them to over provision for your case.

My Unifi is like what you described. Fibre only to building switch, but re-use existing phone copper cable to provide the connection between modem and building switch.

But in my case of Time, it is fibre all the way to modem, which is why I couldn't accept cable degradation. Furthermore, these are brand new fibre cables recently installed (including the one they dug up the main road in front of the condo).

I will see what I can do about the firmware. Currently, it is the latest version from Dlink.

I have lodged a complaint with Time. Will see how they handle this.

And this is exactly how some countries, like Germany and Norway, market their broadband. Due to EU regulalatory blah blah, most of them offer speeds LOWER than what the port is set to, to account for 'bleed', signal fade or whatever other reason, regardless whether it's on the provider end or the subscriber end.

What TIME should have done, in my opinion, is to market their package as 80Mbps and 250Mbps, while still keeping the ports set at 100Mbps and 300Mbps. That way, when their customers find that they are getting more than the advertised limit, they are very pleased and TIME would probably be their friend for life!

It's not even false advertising, but more of 'underpromising and overdelivering'. However, let's face it, this is Malaysia where large number matters, be it WIFI speeds, cellular coverage, broadband speeds and car engine capacities.

Ask yourself, would you not have subscribed to TIME if they had instead offered 80Mbps for RM149 and 250Mbps for RM189?

My point being it's all a matter of perspective, managing of expectation and the fact that service providers here (not only broadband) fail at knowing what they can deliver vs what is likely possible.

Wow so much talk now on overprovisioning etc.

I dropped Unifi when I moved houses and got Astro IPTV with 10Mbps.
From Unifi 5Mbps to 10 with 30 hours free boost up to 50Mbps - I was blown away.
Then I canceled astro and settled for 20Mbps from Time.
Within 2 months I now get 100Mbps (out of supposed 300 from my ZTE stock router on LAN).

Now I am paying the same I ever did - which was RM179. To get a consistent 5x speed boost over what I paid for, with kids on youtube, wife on netflix and I can iflix at the same time...I dunno. I'm okay with it.

I'll upgrade my router later - but coming from Jaring, TMnet, streamyx, unifi and now TIME, i can tell you consistency wins every time.

Aha, I feel the same way. When I first signed up with Time, I tried the RM129 8Mb plan. Was blown away by how much consistently speedier Time was than my RM140 4Mb streamyx. Went to RM179 15Mb, then tried the RM179 100Mb. Finally settled on RM249 50Mb which is now 500Mb!!

Am getting 470-480 Mbps if directly connected to my Asus router. Way way more than the 50Mb I initially paid for. Concurrent Netflix HD, youtube HD (wife and son on their own devices) and Bittorrent downloads with oodles of internet bandwidth to spare. Not getting 500Mb per Time's plan but I'm not complaining..

This post has been edited by kmrdeva: Apr 7 2016, 02:20 PM

you are right we are also not paying their full rate. be thankful.

I think this will be the main difference between old & new subscribers..

Old subscribers like us are happy that we're getting at least 5x the speed than what we initially signed up for (at no extra charge)..

But new subscribers are signing up based on the expectation that they'll get exactly what they signed up for.. So definitely won't be happy when they see a 10% loss..

It's up to the individual though, no right or wrong here. If a consumer is not happy, he/she has the right to ask for clarification and support from the provider.

As for me, I expect Time to provide me at least 85-90% of their advertised speed. So far so good.

Also, I don't realistically demand full speed connection to everwhere. I don't really know if Time can even guarantee full speed to every internet server in the world. Lots more factors at play here.