Starry Escapade

I signed up with Starhub yesterday for their MaxOnline Express Plus. Comes with up to 8Mbps (usual disclaimer mumbo jumbo applies) download with SpeedBoost at selected partner sites of up to 100Mbps. A free home phone line and 1Mbps mobile broadband is also included. All for a price of $59.92. SIM card fee: $37.45, one-time service activation fee: $34.10.

Actual bandwidth is dependent on hardware, software, Internet traffic and destination server.

The cable modem provided is NOT 100Mbps (DOCSIS 3) capable. Which means you have to get your OWN DOCSIS 3 cable modem to be able to access Yahoo! (happens to be one of the partner sites) at 100Mbps. I have not been able to load any speedtest page successfully to test out my connection, but the intuitive feel is that Yahoo does seem to be faster than DSL. So does HardwareZone, and especially VR-Zone.

I got a nice big CDROM called MaxOnline User Guide. Inside the 650MB CD there is a grand total of 17.7MB worth of PDF files (only one actually). Is this necessary? I'd rather they provide a thumbdrive, it is more practical since the drive can be reused, and the manual tends to go out of date anyway.

A digression about how this 100Mbps thing is possible. Singapore has a local Singapore-ONE network which is powered by a speedy backbone. When accessing the SpeedBoost sites, you are actually accessing the local servers. The company itself does not have to own the servers in the localities concerned, even though Yahoo! itself may in fact own servers in Singapore. Akamai installs servers in Singapore that cache popular websites like Yahoo, CNN, etc. If you are interested enough, take a peek at the HTTP headers when visiting these websites, you will see that they are being cached by Akamai. However, you are still accessing the most up-to-date information from the main servers, because Akamai constantly checks with the main server for the most updated pages, and fetches new ones as necessary.

The 3.5G USB dongle for the mobile broadband is HUGE. Makes me just want to use my phone. Caveat: if i put the SIM card into my phone, I lose cellular connectivity as the 3.5G is for data only.

Sending SMS from the 3.5G SIM card costs 5 cents a message. I feel this has to be made more explicit. I knew about this only because I asked.

Does Starhub still practise port blocking?

Bummer: I called Singnet earlier today asking to terminate my Singnet account, and I was told I can only do that in Feb 2009! That means I will be paying an extra $33 a month for another 2 months. Any takers?

I'm escaping from Singtel into the demonic arms of Starhub, what kind of escape is that?

Broadband 'speed race'? No real need for one

Who is this guy kidding? "There is no need for anything above 20Mbps". This is like the misquoted Bill Gates adage "640kB of RAM should be enough for everybody".

Using current infrastructure, SingTel cannot offer anything more than 20Mbps. (ADSL2+ has a top speed of 25Mbps at short distances, which is rarely achievable in reality). There is a gap that needs to be filled, and SingTel is fast losing ground.

They are not just losing ground, they are also losing profits - with the sky high broadband prices enabled by the monopoly that SingTel holds over the phone lines in the country. Only the emergence and deployment of competing technologies like DOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0 provide the incentive for SingTel to upgrade their services. Otherwise, they would tell you 512kbps is enough for everybody. What's on the horizon? Bonded ADSL, VDSL2 and fibre.

Why is Starhub offering 100Mbps? Why are countries like Korea offering 8Mbps as early back as 2004? YahooBB in Japan is offering 8 and 12Mbps back in 2003!

His argument is misleading because a computer can receive data from multiple websites at once. Connecting to 5 different websites, each with capacities to deliver 20Mbps, is enough to max out a 100Mbps Internet connection.

Popular foreign content, like Yahoo, CNN, maybe even YouTube, are cached in local servers by content accelerators like Akamai and LimeLight. Most of the foreign content that you surf will already be coming from local servers.

Speculative downloading in the background is another feature supported by web browsers and applications like Adobe Acrobat Reader to download pages that are linked from the current page in anticipation of the user visiting those links in the next. Often there will be 10 or more links per document. Having higher bandwidth makes for a snappier user experience.

more to come...

This is StarHub's rebuttal:

Higher broadband speeds benefit consumers

I REFER to the letter by SingTel's Mr Peter Heng, 'Broadband 'speed race'? No real need for one' (ST, July 24).

In spite of Mr Heng's assertion that 'any speed beyond 20Mbps today cannot be feasibly used by individual customers', our research indicates that many homes in Singapore now use multiple computers to access the Internet simultaneously over a single connection.

It is also very common for some users to have multiple, concurrent applications and downloads.

Therefore, there will always be a clear, present need for broadband speeds (including beyond 20Mbps) that offer better performance to each user in a home network.

We believe this is also why the global broadband industry is evolving the home networking technology to the newer IEEE802.11n standard, such that consumers will be able to enjoy these higher speeds wirelessly.

According to the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore's online publication, Consumer Information On Residential Broadband Services In Singapore (http://www.ida.gov.sg/Publications/20061213184450.aspx), with higher broadband speeds consumers enjoy better value and benefit more from multiple Internet connections over a single broadband service, as well as a single Internet connection that supports several concurrent online applications.

We agree with Mr Heng that Internet content for consumers in Singapore is largely hosted overseas but we wish to highlight that the nature of the public Internet is such that it will always be a shared infrastructure, and the access is only as good as the weakest and slowest link. StarHub ensures that the weakest link is never within the local-access network.

StarHub ensures there is sufficient bandwidth capacity within the network to deliver the speeds that our customers are paying for. Our cable broadband service, with the new state-of-the-art channel-bonding technology, deployed over fibre-optic and coaxial cables, delivers higher broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps nationwide. No other country in the world offers these speeds to households.

In addition, our cable broadband network uses dedicated frequencies/channels for the individual delivery of video, data and voice services without compromising quality.

Jeannie Ong (Ms)
Head
Corporate Communications & Investor Relations
StarHub

This was the original article by Alfred Siew that started it all (way to go Alfred!):

SINGAPORE: SingTel takes a breather in speed race

SingTel is considering a network upgrade to keep pace with competitors

The Straits Times
Friday, July 20, 2007

By Alfred Siew

Singtel has scaled back its bid to offer the fastest broadband service here for the time being, as it mulls over a network upgrade to keep pace with rivals.

Top-end services -- costing more than $100 a month -- attract heavy users like gamers who crave the extra bandwidth for smoother action on screen.

But after a year of intense competition, SingTel is rethinking this niche market.

The telecom operator stopped selling its 25 megabits per second (mbps) service as a standalone offering a few months ago. It is available now only as part of a $150 bundle of services, including cellphone calls.

Mr Allen Lew, SingTel's chief executive officer for Singapore, cited "low demand and take-up from customers" as reasons for this.

However, the company will continue providing the 25mbps service to existing subscribers, who pay $125 a month.

Mr Lew argued that most home users do not need speeds of more than 20mbps because websites overseas -- where 85 per cent of traffic heads to -- have a cap on how fast users can download.

"We're not saying we are not competing on speed, all we're saying is that any speed above 20mbps is irrelevant in the context of what consumers are using broadband Internet for," he said.

The next fastest service from SingTel now offers 10mbps.

This leaves the high-end market open to rival StarHub, which launched a 100mbps service last December.

Mr Thomas Ee, StarHub's senior vice-president for cable, fixed and Internet protocol services, told The Straits Times it is ready to boost speeds up to 160mbps "when the demand picks up."

The company had said previously that faster speeds would benefit users with multiple computers at home.

SingTel and StarHub are neck and neck in their share of the home broadband market, which also includes smaller players like MobileOne.

Despite not pushing for more speed now, SingTel has been testing other technologies, like fibre optic cables, that support faster speeds, over the past year. But these require running new cables into homes.

Ultra-fast broadband has seen some early success in places like Hong Kong, where videos and other online content are available locally.

Date Posted: 7/20/2007