08
Apr
Why StarHub MaxOnline is a bad choice
So it came to this. I ditched my cable for DSL, which in this case meant changing from MaxOnline to SingNet. Since I had a personal vendetta against Singnet, it was an ironic joke on me. It’s making me sheepish just thinking how strongly I had recommended MaxOnline just a few months ago.
The entire story traces its roots back till 2001, when I got my very first white-box (custom-built) PC at a very shocking price of $1,995. Back then, broadband in Singapore was still growing its teeth, and the country lined up for squealing 56k access. Through some kind of weird plan, SingTel (the main company of SingNet which maintains the PSTN network in Singapore), they offered free Internet access over the 56k modem lines. I only had to pay for the outstanding call charges while the Internet access was active.
It was really cool at that time, since my modem always managed to hit at least 50.6 kbps out of the practical maximum of 52 kbps. That happy relationship lasted until my family moved out of our old estate, and into our new house in 2003. There, the modem couldn’t hit beyond a transfer rate of 26.6kbps, which bugged me a whole lot. Usually, bad phone lines are blamed for a poor connection, but when a technician came down for diagnosis of the problem, he simply told us that “it was not possible to improve our connection, since it was built that way”. Then he proceeded to sell us the company’s broadband connection.
“Ok, then how would you guarantee that I can get 256 kbps with this broadband connection if your company phone lines cannot even manage a 56 kbps?” I asked.
“Don’t worry sir, broadband is digital (sic), confirm very fast one. Mine also like that, so I spend money to buy broadband”
“What about my phone line? Are you going to fix it? It states in your agreement that your company will guarantee at least 40.6 kbps connection.”
“Sorry, nothing we can do for your phone line”
That sounded a lot like a smoke bomb, but I didn’t have the money to get a broadband connection anyway. And since they didn’t even stick to their side of the agreement to fix the line, I swore to never use SingTel or SingNet’s services ever again.
So I hopped onto StarHub’s MaxOnline cable Internet when my block got hooked up to the cable television network. My, I was so awed by the speed that I thought files were being blown down that thick black coaxial cable! It was very fast in the hey-days of 2004 to early 2006. That’s despite the occasional annoyance, like having the undersea cable cut by ships with blind anchors, sharing the (then already meagre) bandwidth going to outside of Singapore. I could even get at least 700 kbps during Singapore’s peak Internet traffic hours.
Then, 6 months ago for some weird reason, the overseas Internet connection plunged to ridiculous levels:
Videos streamed like a trickle, security updates took all day to download, and everything was a general pain in the backside.
Yuck. I called Customer Care, which was really quick to blame the entire thing on the last-mile cable connection into my house. They called their own bluff when their technician came down, and proved that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my Internet connection.
Next, they blamed overseas servers for being stingy in serving up the bytes. Their excuse was shattered when I got my friends on other ISPs to conduct speed tests, achieving at least 1, 200 kbps! It was sickening to have technical support sit on everything for months and months without taking any action to improve their own overseas bandwidth, which was definitely getting very over-crowded.
So, out of absolute frustration, I signed up for SingNet’s ADSL plan (oh, the irony), and immediately got smooth video streaming, and a whole lot better experience than if I had stayed with StarHub:
Not exactly an astronomical difference in overseas speed, but at the very least, YouTube streams smoothly, and I didn’t have to wait all day to download all my security updates!
So I guess it’s goodbye to StarHub now. They had their chance, but they blew it. Just trawling along Hardwarezone, and listen to multiple complaints on the same issue. I’m glad that I escaped the now ludicrous service.
Here’s one more for comparison:
StarHub:
SingNet:
I’m absolutely gutted. Though on principle, SingNet is anal to cripple its own 56k service to promote its own broadband service, at the very least, the service does a decent job.
[tags]SingNet, StarHub, MaxOnline, ISPs, 56k, bandwidth[/tags]
on February 6th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Your blog is quite interesting, however, your post is very inaccurate..
1) Did you notice the WWW in every URL, do you know what it stands for? WWW = World Wide Web , which means internet is a shared media. No internet service in the world is Dedicated even a T1 Connection.
2) You did not sign up for a DSL Line by the way. Singnet is on ADSL, DSL Is a much better technology , in fact it is better than a halve.
3) Speedtest.net is not accurate, reason: when you are doing the test, you have no idea how many thousands more people are doing the test at the same time, and unless the datacenter that they are on is using a 1Gbps connection, I don’t think you can get an accurate result, WAIT! if you are trying to say you can see the difference between the 2 ISPs, well, this is what i have gotta say, this is called routing, do a traceroute, or go to your command prompt, type tracert http://www.microsoft.com with your singnet connection, and if you have anyone who is having a maxonline connection, let them do the same thing, the reason why it is slower is because of the routing.
4) Speed also applies in many varieties, even a simple faulty splitter or even a longger coaxial cable might cause it to be slower than usual. Please take note of that. In Singapore there is an IDA a government body to make sure that ISPs are doing their promise, did you notice that in all their packages, the bandwidth promised always has the work “up to” ? for example , up to 100Mbps .. well, because no one in the world can ever promise certain speed due to the nature of the internet. Internet is like th stock market, it can be up at certain time, it can be down as well. Behind the WWW comes great hardwares and hardwares are man made, which means, they have a lifespan, …
5) I still think right now, Starhub is better than Singnet due to the fact of the usage of Hybrid-Fibre. End users, well, they only know how to complain regarding slow xs, however they do not think of it how it really works. Your PC Is only an engine in a car, you need it to start kicking fuel and to run the wheels… , IDA Has proven that Starhub is much faster than Singnet, however, if you are talking about overseas gaming, i would say that Singnet is much better because of their routing. I am not saying that Starhub is perfect but if they have better routing, i believe, everyone will say bye2 to singnet.. that’s confirmed!
on March 16th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
A Bored Man:
You are totally wrong on point 2: ADSL is a type of DSL technology; All forms of DSL technology are collectively referred to as such conventionally.
No matter how technologically advanced you may claim that StarHub’s technology may be, if it can’t deliver a better experience than SingNet can, it will never over-take its rival in terms of subscriber numbers.
on May 15th, 2008 at 10:26 am
A Bored Man
Without being a StarHub MaxOnline subscriber yourself, I don’t think you are qualified to make any comment as such. Pkchukiss is not arguing whether cable or adsl is more superior. He is frustrated with the slow speed which StarHub is now well known for. I am still using StarHub, but like Pkchukiss said, their speed is always a pain in the ass. To illustrate this, it took me nearly 5 minutes to finally get to the Feedback Form at StarHub website in order to make a complaint about their slow speed. That’s ironical – speed problem with StarHub own site.
To be fair, speed wasn’t really a serious issue with StarHub until a year or more ago. My suspicion is that StarHub is currently oversubscribed to the extent that speed is severely affect.
Like pcchukiss’es case, StarHub technical staff always blame my cables and splitters. They have come to my house twice during which they changed the splitter, the cable modem, check the cable attenuation and tested the connection which then was working fine. But soon after they left, the connection slowed down again. On my own, I re-crimp the connecting cable between the modem and router, change the router but to no avail. Because of this, I tend to believe the actual problem may be over-subscription. I don’t think StarHub will admit it even if this is true. Anyway, in my complaint to StarHub, I forewarn them that I will switch ISP if they can’t solve my problem, regardless of what A Bored Man thinks.
on September 26th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Which SingNet plan are you using (1/3/8/10)? I’m an American who just got to SG a couple months ago, so most of the stuff I access will be overseas. If you’re getting those 1-2 meg rates on the 3 meg plan, I’ll go with that and save a little money.
on September 26th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
@Aaron
I’m using the SingNet 8 mbps plan currently. If it helps, you can take a look at the speed comparisons on IDA’s website
on September 29th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Thx, that’s very useful. Any idea how flexible SingTel are about changing your plan level once you’re signed up (can it be done, does it re-up your contract, etc.)?
on September 29th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
@Aaron
As far as I know, it depends on the contract you’ve signed up for. I’m on a 24 month contract for the 8mbps connection, and SingNet allows me to upgrade my plan, but I can’t downgrade the service level without having to pay the liquidation charges. If you upgrade your service level, you would still be on your existing contract, no weird stuff like signing new contracts.
If you’re willing to wait for a good bargain and don’t mind a 24 month contract, sometimes SingNet gives laptops or desktops as freebies for the commitment. Of course, they charge a higher monthly subscription fee because of the freebie. If you’re not keen on their freebies, you might want to call them up to see if they can cut you a lower price without freebies.
Last but not least, don’t get their wireless ADSL2+ modem (they give it free sometimes) if you’re a heavy user of Bittorrent. Purchase a good router or router-and-modem device, otherwise you’re going to find yourself tethered to the wired connection while you are torrenting.
on September 30th, 2008 at 10:18 am
I have my own wifi gear (Apple AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express) and am fine with buying a new router if the modem they give me doesn’t have enough ports. Come to that, I think I have an old DSL modem or two hanging around somewhere that I can try out if I don’t like theirs.
Given what you say about the speeds, I think maybe I’ll start out on 3 and upgrade to 8 if I don’t like what I’m getting.
on September 30th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I’m sure that if you’re just getting a line for yourself the 3 mbps plan is good enough. Looks like you’re set! Good luck!
on October 24th, 2008 at 1:02 am
[...] users need not worry. It’s normal for this website to load slowly for you; they don’t have enough international bandwidth to support grabbing pages speedily from the United States. Boo to [...]
on December 26th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
While using my friends computers in the US and in Germnay, I was amazed about their swift page access and smooth downloading. No – actually I was pretty baffled. By then I was subscribed to one of the higher grade Singnet plans, thinking I am getting some of the best services possible. Now I had to learn, the reality was quite different. I did not have anywhere near such a great experience as my friends from overseas have.
I thought there must be better in the market, and that is how it came that I changed to Starhub. Big mistake – very big mistake! From now on internet life slowed down to a crawl. From Washington speedtest values are similar as those from pkchukiss. Worst is to websites from Europe, they are slower than a telephone line modem. In particular the page initialisation is inacceptable.
I have still one year to go, waiting every single day for the Starhub contract to run out.
Do not subscribe to Starhub cable, you will regeret if you do.
on December 30th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Hey guys,
I was on MaxOnline Premium previously, and I share your opinion. The connection speed feels great a few years ago until MaxOnline gains popularity about a year ago. That was when I started to feel that it’s not worth paying for the “up to 12Mbps” plan. Although the speed was slow during peak hours, it’s still quite stable.
Recently I downgraded my plan to MaxOnline SurfLite (2Mbps). Coincidentally, that was when I started to get disconnections, i.e. unable to surf the web.
I connected a notebook directly to the cable modem, and i couldn’t get IP address. StarHub support simple tells me that my cable modem is too old (2 years+) and the signal is getting weaker. They told me to change the modem.
Have you ever experience this (or know someone who actually experience this) and resolved the problem by changing the modem? The last thing I want is to spend money changing the modem and the problem is not resolved.
on January 5th, 2009 at 3:34 am
@Dany:
Unfortunately, the problem with my line wasn’t due to cabling, nor was it my modem. I’ve tested it, and local websites loaded fine during the peak hours, while overseas websites really crawled. I can confidently say that if local websites load speedily for you, it shouldn’t be anything to do with the last-mile connection to your home.
on January 5th, 2009 at 3:36 am
@Peter:
I feel your pain. In fact, it got so bad for me I simply got the SingNet connection 6 months prior to my cable contract expiry. I continued to pay my subscription, but I left the cable modem unplugged. I haven’t looked back since my StarHub contract expired.
on January 5th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
If I look at the speedtest.net comparison data, then Starhub ranks among the best, also by international comparison. But as we know, in real life the experience is different.
Could it be the lack of overseas cable capacity they rent? Or may be proxy policies, i.e. the extensive filtering and screening of all internet activities?
on April 13th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Hey,
i’ve been experiencing alot of half-loaded or erroneous loading of webpage, video takes years to load and some stop loading after a while, my mailbox keep telling me that gmail is unconnectable, google take years to load, etc.
And I suspect is the intermittant disconnection of my ISP.
Now, I think I’m ready to switch. =)
Thanks for the entry.
Yours sincerely,
Going Singnet BB
on October 24th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
3 years on starhub is enough for me, fustrating experience, internet speed never what you paid for. Terrible customer care experience, bye starhub.
on October 26th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Good for you! It’s unlikely that the situation will improve, so it’s better to save yourself the headache and get some other service instead!
on November 30th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Is it just me or is my Starhub connection special?
I’ve always been using starhub, and never had any big problems that you all say.. I am able to hit over 2mb downloading speed when I download. On speed tests I can hit over 20mbps.. My surfing has never suffered and I can surf without really waiting for pages to load..
So is it just my connection or are you all wrong?
on December 2nd, 2009 at 12:49 am
I would be interested to see your corresponding speed tests to establish proof of your point, just as I have proven my point.
Your connection being of acceptable quality to you doesn’t prove that we are wrong. Ultimately, if you’re not getting what you paid for, you are not getting what you paid for. If the majority of the people have experienced this, then there is something wrong with the ISP, as in this case.
on August 25th, 2010 at 8:33 am
Bottom line is: Starhub’s speed is alot worse than Singnet most of the time (especially during peak period)
My streaming and gaming experience was utterly disappointing at times (I’m using Starhub by the way) when my latency displayed was 1200+ for those online first person shooter (incredibly aint it?) even though my internet speed is supposed to be “up-to 16mbps” (doubt Starhub will give satisfactory answer as to why there was such a huge difference in the speed)