M1 200 Mbps Fibre home broadband speeds - measured by Samknows

WoW.. that's all I can say. NGN brought a great change to the market. I still remember the "student plan" in early part of 2000 which used to give 35 hours free Dial-Up for $20. Or the 256Kbps unlimited DSL for $55.

Now I am using a 200Mbps fiber connection and it comes with a 'unlimited' calls to singapore phones too. Oh yeah, a Wi-Fi router thrown for free as well. All this for $39 per month. It's slightly expensive compared to my original $31 plan for 50Mbps but I see it's a good bargain. The Wireless router costs atleast 50 in market and if I take it over 24 months contract period, it's already 2/month. So effectively I am paying ~$37.

I've a throughput measurement device at home, thanks to IDA/Samknows and below is the screenshots taken. As you can see the speeds to local content hits almost 200Mbps. Not only the automated tests, but when I try to download from microsoft or Google documents, I can hit 170-180Mbps which is more than sufficient.

So some tips.

• First and foremost, make sure there are no Fast Ethernet equipment that limits your throughput to 100Mbps theoretical max. Every thing must be a min Gigabit Ethernet or GigE that can run at 1000Mbps.
• Check your Router, Computer NIC card etc
• Most important / often missed. Physical cables. If your LAN cable is cat-5 then that's another bottle neck. Min Cat5e or Cat6 is needed
• No Wi-Fi. My Wi-Fi gives me a max of 120Mbps but again that's not consistent. I've attached a Wi-Fi heatmap of my home and you can understand why I can't hit more than that ;)

So that's all. I don't plug in my notebook all the times to a physical cable but this is good enough speed for me on Wi-Fi. 

Only grouse with M1 is the billing system. Over the 26 months of relation, I had more than 5 billing issues. It's minor ($2 or 1) but it takes away the confidence. That's all folks..

M1 Fiber Broadband 200 Mbps + Mobile Broadband 1 GB Promo @ SGD 39

It's time to re-contracted my home Fiber broadband. It's not a great comparison work for me (you might have guesses which camp I went for as I shared few times in the past about my experiences here, here & here) and I tried to get the cheapest among big telco's. Again, M1 is attractive and lately I am quite impressed with the improvement in Customer Service. I had a very bad experience with their call centre but now a days it's a matter of seconds(or less than couple of min) before some one attends the call.

So the offer is 200 Mbps home fiber, 1GB mobile broadband, free digital voice for home landline & a Linksys free Wi-Fi router. All at SGD 39 per month.

It was great and I signed up over telephone / online for this two days ago. Opennet is still a pain in the XYZ, as the earliest appointment is in early July. Anyway, I've got the free router and data SIM delivered to me. So I tried to check whether the data SIM is working fine, and I tried it in my 2nd Dual-SIM Phone.

Now the funniest part. The moment I restarted the phone, I've got a call from a telemarketer from Prudential.  I've no idea how the hell they even know this number. I havent even checked the number as I thought it's a data SIM. So I checked and found the number on SIM card cover, then I tried to make a call. Yeah it works surprisingly. Seems M1 didn't blocked it unlike SingTel.

Which means, you can use this as a 2nd mobile line or spare mobile line ? But there is a caveat. The charges are damn expensive. According to M1 the voice calls & SMS are charged for both incoming & outgoing. Below are the rates.

Local Airtime Charges (Excluding Mobile Broadband V plans)

Peak Hours (Mon - Sat, 9am - 9pm) 1st min. at 21.4¢, 2nd min. onwards at 10.7¢ Off-Peak Hours (Sun, Public Holidays, Mon - Sat, 9pm - 9am) 5.35¢ per min Charged by 1st min. block, followed by 6 sec. block

For me, it's good and bad. I can pass this SIM card when my close friends travel to Singapore, or use it as spare.
But to be honest, I found the danger of getting anonymous incoming calls worse than the benfit. So that's where I called m1 to block or bar the voice calls completely. Be it incoming/outgoing. I can still use this for Data and my trusted VoIP softwares like Fringe, GV or the all time fav Skype would be enough. Who needs a CS connectivity :)

Now looking forward for the Fiber connectivity to home. Will update in next couple of weeks time :)

M1 did it again. 200Mbps FTTx SGD 49/month

Source; M1 Promotions

Just after an year or so since we saw $ 29 / 50Mbps; $39/100 Mbps, M1 started the price war again with $49/200Mbps plan.

Wait.. The 49 includes, Home Fixed voice services & Mobile broadband data service (for your tab or iPad). With the current bundled plans of 2GB mobile data it makes perfect sense to subscribe to a separate data plan for tab and this is where I believe M1 is aiming.

Ofcourse, the question is how *FAST* the 200Mbps can take us to internet highway. The problem in Singapore is the content is not hosted locally (even with massive Peta Bytes of Cache from SingTel, Google) so the overseas internet bandwidth is important and this is where we need to improve .

IDA asks OpenNet to wire Singapore quickly..

Source: CNA

Basically IDA is asking OpenNet to improve its performance. I could recall our (myself + colleagues) when we first heard about  OpenNet  plans to wire the nation by 2013.

Lets me share with a quick example. If OpenNet were to install 2,050 connections/weak then they can only do 106,600 connections in an year.

In 2010 we've close to 82% penetration in residential sector as per IDA.
In 2008 we've close to 78% penetration in Commercial sector as per IDA.

We've 1 million house holds + 381,000 registered entities in Singapore (ACRA Website).

If the target is to migrate 60% of residential market & 80% commercial sector to NBN then the target number is ~ 900,000 connections. You may ask why 60% to Fiber or 80% to commercial. My rationale of giving high % to commercial is due to the existing exorbitant charges for Business broadband connections and I believe most of the SME's migrate to NBN.


At the rate of 106,000/year it takes nine years to reach the target


You may ask why 60% to Fiber or 80% to commercial. My rationale of giving high % to commercial is due to the existing exorbitant charges for Business broadband connections and I believe most of the SME's migrate to NBN.

OpenNet not only need to do it quick but they need to ensure that the connections are 'working' & Nucleus connect need to make sure that they do activation as per schedule. Not based on their schedule but based on what was promised to Customer.

The biggest issue I've seen & experienced is the end to end synchronization.

RSP promises a date of installation but Nucleus Connect folks failed to visit. When N.C installer comes to home, then he says OpenNet fiber is dead. Pointing fingers at each other.. Delaying the installation & duplication of work.

Fiber Internet aka NGN in Singapore

Recently I got a call from Myrepublic a new entrant in to the NGN market. They claim that they are quite different from existing players and also they do not cap international bandwidth. Even the local news papers published their stories and blogs/forums were abuzz with this claims.

Though I am not against them I still believe the 'value' of Infrastructure lies with the  organization rather than pure technical play. I am happy with my existing Fiber plan (SGD 29/50Mbps from M1).

Faq from Myrepublic

Now my feedback about these claims,

1. How is MyRepublic’s Network different from other major consumer ISPs in Singapore
All major ISPs in Singapore provide both consumer and large corporate Internet services. They tend to prioritize large corporates over consumer and small business users

My View: Not entirely accurate. Both SingTel + SH maintains separate networks for Corporate & Consumers from access to core. While any operator/SP prefer business customers the claim that they prefer at the cost of residential is not quite accurate.

2. What kind of international experience can I expect?
We DO NOT discriminatively cap/rate-limit/shape/throttle per subscriber for international bandwidth, unlike other ISPs.

My View: First, I see they are offering their services to SME's which makes this claim a bit dubious.Still, the problem is not 'cap/rate-limit/shape' but in essence the "over subscription" model. Today the international bandwidth (so called connectivity with content in US) costs ~ SGD 60/Mbps/Month. So if you are getting the impression that with MyRepublic you can get full speed from Youtube/NetFlix you'll be wrong. There is no way they can pay SGD 6000 to international bandwidth and charge you SGD 60 :).

The business model is very simple. Operator buy 100Mbps @ SGD 6000. They sell to 200 people (example only. In reality some operators sell to 150 or some to 300 or 500. Typically is 1:20-40) and get SGD 12,000 in revenue. So the profit is 6000. As simple as that.

For example if you see the entire Singapore international bandwidth is 24 Gbps in 2005 (source: nationmaster). This figure includes consumer+corporate+educational. I couldn't get the breakdown and take this as the residential number.

Assuming a 500% growth it'll be 120 Gbps in 2011.Although mMy experience with the local ISP's tells me a much lower number, we'll stick to this number.

Now we've 1.235 million residential connections as per IDA. Assuming the average subscription plan is 5 Mbps we should ideally have 6,175 Gbps bandwidth or ~ 6 Tbps bandwidth.

ISP sold local bandwidth = 6,175 Gbps
ISP actual international bandwidth = 120 Gbps.
Oversubscription = 50x.

The problem with MyRepublic claim" no capping of international bandwidth" doesn't really helps as it all in the actual international bandwidth they have and the number of lines sold locally.
The best part I like from MyRepublic is "no contract". Personally this is what I hate the most with existing players and I wish I can get it in the future from these operators.

Anyway, in conclusion, I still prefer to stick with the existing operators due to the

* Service/Support
* Bundling/Ease of managing my entire communication lines
* Reliability

For the actual speeds and performance you may refer to IDA published information.

1. http://www.ida.gov.sg/Publications/20061213184450.aspx
2. http://www.ida.gov.sg/Publications/20061130175201.aspx

Youtube speed test - Singapore, M1 fiber

Good throughput these days and after upgrading to Fiber no complaints :)

@29 SGD/month for 50Mbps this may not be a steal, but much better compared to what I used to pay for 6 Mbps. Now the only complaint is the 'proxy' stuff where the transparent proxy seems to be breaking downloads/streaming at times.

If not, I'll give 5* to M1 Fiber.

Fiber to home. Best part is not download but "Upload"

I've changed to Fiber services recently. To be honest, I am one of the lucky person to have Fiber to my home last year but the high prices stopped me from even thinking about fiber. Also the trusted DSL was working pretty fine except problems with Video calls during peak hours and occasional issues with uploading disconnects.

I tend to do a lot of video calls but recently I stopped due to the bad experience. If you happen to see Cisco Tele presence, then you know what I mean by 'quality'. Ofcourse I am not a great fan of their service UMI but I love the T.P.

Coming back to the point, recently I opted for a 'cheap' fiber plan at 29/mo and they promised me 50Mbps DL/UL. I subscribed because it's cheap and hoping that atleast I can get 2Mbps DL/UL during peak hours which is fine to meet my needs. To my surprise the speeds are much better and I can do pretty decent video calls with US, Japan, India & UK. It's cool.

You can see the curve and agree at times the speed dropped below 5Mbps but most of the time its consistent and hovers above 20Mbps with occasional spikes of 60/70Mbps. Great job M1. Thanks for this new experience and you've got a new loyal customer ;)