Celcom 3.5G/HSDPA Speed and performance review

Recently i just subscribed a Celcom 3.5/HSDPA package, RM98 monthly. Doing some testing over the coverage, speed and performance to make sure it is what i want (Disappointed! Read my comments in red below).

By overall the result it is considered ok , (I’m regreted to posted a positive review last time, it is suck, you only get fast speed in first two weeks, after that, no different with 3G, or sometime worst than EDGE!) most area are under 3g/3.5G coverage (You won’t be able experience even 1MB connection speed), although sometime is hard to get HSDPA coverage inside the building and it will automatically switch to 3G/WCDMA or EDGE (is nightmare actually, even connected the speed is slowest than EDGE speed that others can offered),  i understand at the moment this is the limitation of the hardware, as long Celcom willing to invest more to expand/upgrade their 3.5G/HSDPA coverage here, soon or later it will become better and better. I’m not sure about other states, from some blog and forum, seems like in KL there are lots of negative feedbacks. Hopefully this won’t happen in Sarawak. (Na~ same, everywhere, forget it~)

* Although they said 3.5G/HSDPA is 3.6MB/s speed, you knew it will never reach 3.6MB, may be in future.
But actually HSDPA speed can reach 7.2MB/s, hope one day we will see this result appear in the speed test result.
(No hope, let’s just hope it able to get 1MB speed for this moment)

Monthly limit of the usage – 5GB

One thing i don’t like is, they limited your monthly usage to 5GB, which i find 5GB is too low, because 5GB is equal to :

170MB x 30 days = 5100MB (around 5GB)

which mean i can only use 170MB download usage max per day? In that’s the case if i download a stuff which is 1GB, i need to stop using my 3.5G/HSDPA for a week, so the rest of the month the speed will maintain the same and not switching to EDGE mode? Sounds stupid right?

Which i find this is not really reasonable, but i understand they limited the usage is to protect the bandwidth overuse by some users, since it is sharing. It is fair enough if to be control, but Celcom, can it be more like 10GB/monthly? 5GB/monthly is too low~~!!!!

Upload stream is lower than Streamyx, only 150kbps max.

This is the reason i can’t terminate my contract with Streamyx 1MB package, because Streamyx provide better uploading speed, 384kbps for 1MB package, since i do a lot of file uploading works, using Celcom 3G/3.5G for uploading is nightmare to me.

Celcom 3G/3.5G uploading speed:

Streamyx uploading speed:

Seems like Celcom 3G/3.5G download speed is better

I’m doing some test on YouTube video, some Full Flash website with heavy downloading stuff, seems like Celcome have a better downloading speed than TM Net streamyx

No different, sometime worst than EDGE!

YouTube video

Full Flash website

http://www.nikesportswearstories.com/

Who should use Celcom 3.5G/HSDPA?

I would say if you are someone who really need fast speed broadband on the move, yes Celcom 3.5G/HSDPA package is what we have now (at the moment) in Kuching. But if you are someone who are broadband heavy user like downloading movies, musics, media and files from Internet, which is more than 5GB per month, sorry, you need to stick with TM Net Streamyx, i know their connection and services not as good as what we expected, but that is the only choice for fixed line, no lmit usage and value for money at the moment.

Those no fixed line at home, only choice, but i suggest you save RM30 and choose 3G only, coz i find 3.5G and 3G is the same, although they said 3.5G is faster, but it never happened to me!

What about other options?

Well, as i mentioned before in my early post regarding Broadband services provider in Kuching. Is either you spend more to go for Wireless broadband like WiMax by RedTone, which you need to purchase the expensive modem and pay more monthly for the subscrition fee, or you just stick with TM Net Streamyx, everyone in Malaysia knew their quality of services and speed, but how? We do not have other options at the moment.

What thing should consider?

The guy who sell the Celcom 3G/3.G HSDPA told me, modem is very important, some people only buy a cheapo China brand 3G modem, and expect to get better coverage is impossible, as modem will affected the signal, and signal will affected the speed. Well, i just purchase this Sierra Wireless 3G/3.5G modem with GPS ready and possible to reach 7.2 MB speed in future, with mini SD slot, RM230 (promotion price).

Forget this, even you purchased a very good modem, you will never get a higher speed!