Data Cap or No Data Cap?

yes-no-cap

About 2 days after UniFi was launched by the Prime Minister of Malaysia. TM announced that it will not impose any data capping on its High Speed Broadband Service(HSBB) which it initially planned.

The truth is, TM is not sure whether it should limit data usage of its High Speed Broadband customers.

Question- Why would you buy a Ferrari car just to drive to work(short distance). TM is offering a “Ferrari service” to all Malaysians but it may run out of fuel within short distance.

My Opinion:

speedlimit

I think the question is back to TM- Who are the target customers for its UniFi service? Is it those heavy downloader out there? Companies? Individual(mass market that don’t require speed more than 2-3Mbps) or students?

The reason for data capping- Internet is a shared network and everyone wants to access it, but not 24hours/7days a week. Data Capping is to ensure everyone makes FAIR USE of the Internet service for the price they are paying.

UniFi service is expensive at the moment, but it is a premium service since it relies on its own network/connectivity and does not depend on the Streamyx network.

Maybe TM should continue to charge higher for its UniFi service since it is a premium but what about those Streamyx customers who are waiting to move to UniFi? I think TM should still offer packages with lower speed(such as 2Mbps) to cater the mass market. But that also creates another question- Considering the past experience on Streamyx, how many customers would upgrade to UniFi and pay more?

TM should come up with a plan that will suit all customers. In my opinion, the more data that a customer consume, the customer should pay more for the broadband service.

My Suggestions

For the general population, TM could do “auto adjusting rates” or something more like an add on. All customers pay for basic service every month (a minimum RMxx for a xx speed and xx data usage). Once customers exceed the given usage they should be notified via email with an option of a secondary plan that should be cheaper than the standard monthly rate. Some customers may also opt for this to be automated.

Example, I signed up for the BASIC(one plan for all) UniFi service at RM100 per month with a 60GB usage. Once I exceed this usage within a particular month, I will be given an option to subscribe to a secondary plan(RM10 for 6GB, RM50 for 30GB) or I can make it automatic(subscribe to RM10 for 6GB once I exceed my given data limit). TM makes more money anyway(but it will come from users that use more data).

TM should also consider the “Burst speed” offered by TimedotCom.

For the heavy downloader and gamers, the service should be unlimited and price shouldn’t be less RM200 a month considering this group of people consume a lot of data and uses a lot more Internet than any other people out there. Maybe TM should monitor customers that use a lot of “downloading” and offer customised package for them.

Rather than pricing the service as high as RM249 per month, TM should educate customers on why they need such high speed service(something positive that will benefit the individual or a company) and not just think of selling UniFi.

My suggestion above may not be applied by TM, as there are alternative ways to offer UniFi to the market. But the message that I’m trying to deliver is this- Give option to your customers in terms of price, speed and usage.

As for the topic, my answer is- Data Cap for standard customers(lower price), No data cap for heavy users(higher price, should be more expensive than business packages).

Related topics on MalaysianWireless:

http://lolsim.com/ LOLsim

Only people who will pay the amount they're charging are those with high salary and work 9-5pm. They come home and want fast Internet. Those who can't afford will just download everything 24/7 to justify the high price(and therefore save money on movie tickets)

As far as I know, Unifi will share the same backbone Streamyx is running on. Unifi is fibre all the way and Streamyx is copper line based. You don't hear investment to put a undersea cable for Unifi. If TM said their internet capacity is maxed out by 6% users, then why are they overselling their internet by introducing Unifi? Shouldn't they stop selling Streamyx and Unifi and put another undersea cable? The fact is they're lying through their nose. Their capacity isn't anywhere near maxed out by 6% users if they can introduce Unifi, right? They're just a corporation trying to make more money. The problem is since they're a monopoly, they can do whatever the frak they wants.

Data cap is standard. And It wouldn't be a problem if Unifi is RM70 or something. If it is this expensive, then there shouldn't be a cap.

I would like to point out that Streamyx 1mbps is RM88 in 2004 and still has the same price in 2010. And TM said they won't lower the price. This is unprecedented in any developing country. If TM can have their way, they will probably charge RM88 till 3010. There might not be any cap but they actively throttle BT traffic from 6am to midnight. So much for net neutrality.

BTW, I want to point out a misconception that you have associated with gamers. Online games are super efficient on their data usage. I can play hours of online games and still use less than 100MB. They're only affected by lag (those ping thingy with their 100ms). Gamers only consume data when downloading patches for their game and depending on games, those can be quite small. Only those downloading World of Warcraft patches or other MMORPG uses a lot of data. Considering that Streamyx has acceptable ping within Malaysia, pure gamers won't switch to Unifi. But most of them are downloaders too.

“should be more expensive than business packages”

Business packages are uncapped and cost only RM50 more. Charging more for something that is the exact same will make downloaders angry. A good difference from business packages is no BT throttling on the downloaders package. Business packages are sure to be throttled as well so this justifies the higher price. Business users have been paying more for the same thing because they actually earn money using the Internet.

Conclusion: I agree with your answer. Normal users should pay less and get capped since they never exceed the cap anyway. Downloaders should get charged higher and get uncapped. RM149 is bloody expensive for capped internet but not for uncapped internet. Even this is expensive compared with other countries but since Malaysia is a last world country, it is cheap compared with Streamyx.
Ken Ooi

Hong Kong Broadband offers HKD99 (~RM45) for 100Mbps package. This plan will provide maximum symmetrical bandwidth of 100Mbps for accessing local servers, and 20Mbps for accessing overseas servers.
https://apply.hkbn.net/mgm/eng/mgm_nc.jsp

HKBN provides the bb100 + HomeTel Combo+ bbTV at HK199 (~RM92) at the same speed.

So is TM offer a really High Speed and worth the money?
JQ

For the amount that TM charges,there should not be any data capping cos it is even more expensive than what Singapore is offering in their broadband service.Comparing the service level of our broadband quality and that of Singapore,for sure Singapore will be better.Which bring us back to the question,why charge more when your service level is no way comparable to what singapore.Do remember that broadband is a necessity in today world and not a luxury item,therefore charges should be affordable for the Mass with speed push as high as possible cos with faster speed,a lot of work can be done faster.A faster internet connection is also the key to bringing foreign investment.You wouldn't one a foreign company to invest here and have problem sending a medium file back to the HQ which should be done in minutes instead of hours which what is happening right now.
http://blog.ashytized.net/ Ashraf

Your cap idea sounds good! Though traffic monitoring will be a challenge. Should they base their capping on how much you download, or what type of content (streaming, P2P, etc) is being downloaded?

I doubt one can compare UniFi to other countries where “high speed broadband” is already a mature technology. Some of you must have seen the investment they put into installing the underlying infrastructure of HSBB in residential areas, and perhaps even the high end edge and core routers. Something new and ambitious will obviously infer premium costs in the beginning. Of course, they'll only shoot themselves in the foot if they do not commit to their SLA ;)
http://blog.ashytized.net/ Ashraf

You've got a point regarding foreign investment, though I'm not sure about the performance of TM's enterprise packages. Hopefully it would have a more critical performance tolerance than your usual household plan =P

This is probably why IT areas like Cyberjaya are served by other providers such as SHTech (which seems to perform well these days). If we all assume TM is monopolizing the backbone, then its interesting to see it perform satisfactory as a vendor.
http://muyyaQ.blogspot.com muyyaQ

this is malaysia. not hongkong.
Mojako40

i think the writer need to think or review again if u cap it means the network is not able to handle or not stable yet ,it means its not HSBB(maybe is CSD). the cost or service charge is expensive compare to near by countries.

Mar201027

Kugan

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