YES 4G at high altitute!

Yesterday I brought YES 4G Huddle to PIDC on the 20th floor, NB tower @ Jalan Bagan Luar, Butterworth, to test the ability of the broadband at high altitute. It had a nice scene on top, how did it look like? a picture is worth a thousand words!

View from 20th floor, with the lovely rainbow !

Let's run the test and see how it perform! First test was done right beside the window and this was the reading:

PIDC, 20th floor, NB Tower @Butterworth, green signal strength

A very competent result! But wait, how about the penetration issue? I was curious how would it do when I got into the center of the tower? Not surprisingly, with a few steps inwards, the signal indicator changed from green to yellow, then red. When I finally reached the center of the building, it gave me this reading:

20th floor, NB Tower @Butterworth, red signal strength

What an anti-climax! From here we know, if you happen to have an office room/cubicle far away from the window, you wouldn't want to get YES WiMax. The low building penetration rate is quite apparent.

YES huddle got a chance to get some fresh air during lunch time. Just like Luke Skywalker taking revenge on Darth Vader, the huddle took a deep breath from the dense air on the sea level and gave us a big slap on the face with this almost insane speed:

G floor, NB tower @Butterworth, green signal strength

In the same condition, how would Maxis 3G fare? Let's see:

G floor, NB Tower @Butterworth, Maxis 3G 3 bars

K.O-ed, cold and unconscious! Adios, Maxis!

First day experiencing with YES 4G! ( YES vs Maxis vs Streamyx)

I first came across YES Campus Plan a few days ago. There are a few plans given by YES 4G for the masses with different needs, do allow me to list them out here:

source: http://yes.my

activation fee RM50 + Price of device (RM99/399/488)

1. Pay as you use: RM0.03/MB. RM0.09min/SMS, minimum RM30 usage/month minimum commitment.

2. Valuepack 68: RM68 = 3.5GB+150min+150sms

3. Valuepack 150: RM150 = 10GB+250min+250sms
(you will be charged pay-as-you-use rate once u exceed your data quota.)

4. CampusPack 28: For students of participating EPP institutions - RM 28 = 1GB+100min+400sms
(EPP: Education Partner Program, participating institutions are UM, USM, UPM, UTAR, TARC, UTM & more to come, according to them)

5. Campus Plan: For students and staff from non-EPP-participating institutions - same as pay per use but waived activation fee and monthly commitment.

Devices Offered by YES 4G are listed below:

USB GO dongle RM99, MiFi huddle / WiFi gateway RM399, 4G phone RM488

If you get GO they will free RM100 credits distributed into 10 months ( =you get RM10 rebate for 10 months)

If you pay RM1199 you get huddle/gateway, RM800 credit and RM400 rebate.
or
A 4G Samsung phone with RM712 credit + RM488 rebate

I'm eligible for Campus Plan and it sounded attractive to me so I decided to give it a try, but it wasn't a smooth sail from its customer service center. The helpdesk person was unsure about my status for applying Campus Plan and he actually got confused between CampusPack 28 and Campus Plan. I tried asking him for the contact of a person in charge for the plan but he also couldn't provide the information to me. What a shame. Something to improve here, YTL.

Thanks to Facebook, I managed to find the person in charge for USM YES booth called Fareez (http://www.facebook.com/#!/Fareezshahfiqar) . He was a very helpful and a very pleasant person to talk to. From him I got to know that to apply for CampusPack or Campus Plan you have to walk-in to their booth and can't apply at just any dealers, hence I made an appointment to meet with him at USM today.

After arriving at USM, the registration was pretty swift and Fareez briefed me everything I need to know about YES 4G. He answered every questions from me too. Hats off for Fareez. Within 20 mins, I then walked off with my fresh YES Huddle. Excited!

I was home 3 hours later and it was the time to play with my new toy:

Boxed huddle

unboxed, plugged in with micro USB and along with the free gift notepad =.=

There is only one LED indicator on the surface with left showing 4G and right showing WiFi. There is only one light for WiFi with blue indicating "WiFi on", while 4G indicator has Green, yellow and red showing the strength of the 4G signal, respectively.

After setting up the huddle with my YES account, I found out I was already activated and online! I quickly ran a speedtest with speedtest.net, and this was the result I got:

Crazy first test

%^%&^*&*()*&^%$()*@#!#@#)(*()!)@(*$^&#@%!@)( GOD BLESS Japan! It was a crazy result but I soon found out that it was just some kind of hiccup from the server I guess. Then I ran another test with 4G indicator in green, and this was what I got (in average):

Average speed YES 4G @ Taman Bagan Baru, Butterworth
(on my iPhone 3GS, signal: green, server: Penangfon)

Not as shocking as what I saw in USM few hours ago (11Mbps!!!) but it was more than adequate noting I'm in a small town with a strait coming in between Penang Island and I, so I was not complaining too much. The Ping was on the high side though, I guess it would give you headache if you were to DOTA a lot with YES. To give a comparison, this was the average Maxis 3G speed I got from my location:

Average speed Maxis 3G @ Taman Bagan Baru, Butterworth

250Kbps! now that's a good 10 times slower than YES! Well now you would ask how would Streamyx compare to the rest? I've been the good ol' loyal streamyx/TM net user for, like, my whole life, since I don't remember given any reasonable alternative. My current Streamyx plan is the 2Mbps Uni Pack Student Package, which came along with a netbook (Arthur, say Hi!). It has been performing extremely stable within the range of 1.7~2.2Mbps. Tonight when I ran the test it was a bit on the slower side with 1.65Mbps. For your reference:

Streamyx 2Mbps @ Taman Bagan Baru, Butterworth

YES 4G is not without issues. It is based on WiMax technology and it has been known to have low building penetration rate. In my case, it is so severe that after stepping two steps inwards from the window edge, the signal indicator changes from green to red, which gives speed of 300~700Kbps, still beats Maxis hands down, though. So, two cents of advice: Place your huddle/zoom as near as your window/door as possible to get the best reception!


VERDICT:

It has been a good first day experience, although I was expecting 4~5Mbps, as what the most users around the Net are getting. I am looking forward to test in NB tower @ 20th floor tomorrow to see its performance in high altitude. Will keep you updated. Let's see and stay tuned!

first thing ever~!

heya... this is my 1st blog :) trying things out