Some data points:

Tried a speed test right now, from my apartment above 20th floor on border of coverage area. Got 2900/440. In other rooms in the same apartment - or even on the balcony - I get the same green bars but cannot connect at all - always get "connect failed". Location seems to matter a lot, at least high up.

Best speed I got with it was at Finnegan's on Jalan Sultan Ismail a couple days ago, about 5000/450.

I think it is unreasonable to demand that they deploy a network which is capable of performing at the max specs of whatever client-side equipment they happen to give out.

My television is capable of receiving a thousand channels. But Astro only has a hundred (and only two worth watching!).
My ADSL modem can go 20mbps. But Streamyx only goes to 4mbps.
My phone can go 14mbps. But neither Digi, Celcom, Maxis, nor U is doing that.
And so on.

I read his comments very carefully. He said that the fact that they released a product which did not perform at the max specs of the client equipment, means that they released something that was not ready for market. That is what I was objecting to, because it's a preposterous claim. If you had actually read the quote that I included, you would understand what I was talking about.

If the speed tests they are performing at PC Fair are rigged or otherwise clearly not representative of real-world usage, then you have a very valid point and I encourage you to make the most of it. Personally, I haven't seen enough data to be satisfied one way or the other. Wireless internet performance depends on a lot of factors and it takes fairly rigorous study to come up with any broadly valid conclusions.

But even if they are definitely misleading potential users at PC Fair, that doesn't mean they have an obligation to invite you to every private event - or even that it makes sense to derail a DS-300 event for discussion of Wiggy performance.

To be consistent, you'll have to expand this crusade to all other wireless connectivity vendors, since they are all bound by the same technological limitations, and suffer variations in performance depending on location and other factors.

The only difference is that P1 has set the speed cap higher, so at least some P1 customers will get higher speed than users of any other service.

It's a good deal if it serves your needs and does so for less money than any other provider.

Despite your gripe with their promotion tactics (which may be legitimate), I haven't seen where you've really addressed the "good deal" criteria I just outlined above.


You spend a lot of time claiming that people can only disagree with you if their perspective is tainted or flawed in some way.

I am quite sure p4n6 is a paying customer; if you'll look back at other threads, he was asking a lot of questions about P1 early on and for a while he was fairly critical of them. By the time he seemed to be a P1 user, the free-trial group had closed.

For my part, I willingly disclose that I am in the free-trial group. I have been lucky enough to get good performance most of the time, though the DS-300 box did use to freeze up frequently and I complained about that when it was happening. Recent firmware updates seem to have fixed that. At the moment it is working well, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise just to satisfy you that I am capable of maintaining an objective viewpoint.


I'd like more, but I've been in Malaysia long enough not to expect it. Just yesterday I was at a Cold Storage supermarket where a sign was posted at the cashier saying they had misprinted a special offer price in their newspaper ad and would not be honouring the misprinted price. In any country with functioning trading standards regulation, Cold Storage would not be able to get away with that - it is their responsibility to proofread their own ads and under the law they should be required to honour an offer they make in print. Here in Malaysia, companies are generally not held to account for claims they make, and as a consumer it is only sensible to take that into account when making decisions. Before spending money, find out from other consumers what experience they have had with the product, then determine whether it's worth your money. Anything else is only asking for stress and disappointment.

Today I am getting 50-100% packet loss to most places in USA with Streamyx. If that's what they consider "rectified and restored", we're all in trouble!

I didn't think the reasons were that great. Basically they said that the technology is capable of 10mbps. One day when their network was built out more, or some other nebulous thing happened, a significant number of users would be able to get that speed.

By promising "up to" a speed that is unrealistic for almost all users at this time, I think they are shooting themselves in the foot. The real point of their marketing should be that the Wiggy offers many users faster mobile broadband than they can get any othey way. That's actually true, and should be enough to persuade people to use it.

ObCarAnalogy:

Proton is selling a car that goes 100km/h almost all the time.
P1 comes along with a car that goes 200km/h almost all the time, and in special racetrack conditions can sometimes go 1000km/h.

P1 advertises "our car goes 1000km/h", and people buy it, and can only go 200km/h.

Those customers are annoyed because they didn't get what they were promised - EVEN THOUGH they are still getting much better than they'd get from Proton. P1, despite delivering the better product, ends up alienating customers.

This post has been edited by rajulkabir: Apr 16 2009, 04:24 PM

This echoes what I heard from P1 staff.

P1 doesn't get to choose where the PC Fair is held. If they want to be at the PC Fair, they are going to have to be in the KL Convention Centre, surrounded by tons of metal and thousands of active RF devices. It's a hostile environment for demonstrating wireless internet access. A portable base station was really the only way they could do demos, unless they walked each customer out into KLCC park with a netbook to run speedtests.

Don't forget, all the other WISPs mobbing the hall (Celcom etc.) most likely had portable base stations in place as well.

P1 had three choices:

1) Not bring a portable station, and then demo performance which is considerably worse than users within coverage areas would normally get.

2) Bring a portable base station, run it at its normal configuration just a few metres from the booth, and demo performance which is considerably better than users within coverage areas would normally get.

3) Bring a portable base station, and throttle the speed down to match what users within coverage areas would normally get.

They did #2, but they probably should have done #3.

Regardless of what's advertised, it's still the fastest mostly-mobile broadband in Malaysia.

But I do see you using it, because as a rational consumer the most important thing is that it's providing you with the best value.

As I've said before, I believe it was foolish for P1 to squander their high ground as providers of the fastest broadband, by advertising unrealistic numbers.

On the other hand, I also see that on their web site (and presumably eventually in their other collateral), they have now added "*Average download speed 1Mbps to 3Mbps, subject to network conditions".

Based on the conversations at this past week's test group event, I think it's reasonable to conclude that the discussion you started here had a lot to do with their decision.

And that alone - the fact that P1 listened to customers and made a change for the better - puts them worlds ahead of the competition.