While it is understandable to a certain degree when people in developed countries feel unsatisfied with their broadband, here where I live, 1mbps down
and 256K up is the norm for the middle class, which is priced around RM88 without modem. This is worth a week's supply of food.
While there are several minor ISP's in the country, they are a far cry compared to the one major and virtual monopoly that provides internet
connectivity to most parts of the country. Their primary mode of delivery is through ADSL. It is virtually impossible to compete against them in DSL due
to the fact that this company is also a subsidiary to the company who owns virtually all of the telephone lines in the nation. It is also a government
owned company.
While it is indeed faster compared to the 56K we relied upon several years ago and we do not have monthly download limits like certain ISP's in
Australia, there are several issues that plague us to this day.
1) The stated speed of 1mpbs is on a best effort basis.
Speed fluctuates greatly and frequently on a daily basis. Abrupt Disconnections are a given.
2) Aggressive throttling.
Any form of P2P is utterly useless. Use one, and you will get 5kb/s if you are lucky. In addition when using P2P, despite the fact that you are getting
horrendous speeds, webpages will crawl until you deactivae all forms of P2P activity. Disconnections will also occur even more frequently then usual.
The only way to overcome this is through the use of VPN. Fortunately, the current state of connectivity in the country made it a lucrative business and
many companies are offering anti-throttling services at very affordable rates. Even with VPN though your connection will get disconnected when your line
uses the advertised bandwith for prolonged periods of times, eg: 4 hours. One can't help but feel that this is done out of spite.
3) International line limitations.
Due to the fact that there is a minuscule amount of useful content hosted within the country, many subscribe broadband in order to access content in
other countries. Unfortunately, this means that pages will load significantly slower, timeouts will occur, and pings are in excess of 300ms. This also
means that gaming internationally is unpractical and unless it is popular, seeing a local or near local server is rare. Streaming is also severely
affected.
4) Sub par customer service.
When problems occur, which is a given, calling customer service is a nightmare. Expect to be on hold for 15 minutes to an hour. When they finally do get
to you, they will start cycling through inane queries which, while perfectly understandable for a new user, is utterly insulting to the majority of
users who already have went through the system for the 10th time in the same month. For a year. When they finally logged your problem, expect it to be
solved within the month if you are lucky. Or not at all if you are not. Oddly though, the ISP's parent company, which manages telephone lines respond
quickly if it is a telephone related issue - within the day in fact.
What I am trying to say here is that while people in certain developed countries feel that they are not getting enough, we here can only stare in envy
at countries which offer 10mbps for a fraction of the price we pay here in addition to the much needed professionalism in customer support.
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