Celcom is sneakily rolling out its home fiber internet plans for Klang Valley and it is said to be officially available from April 7th 2016 onwards. While the “hero” plan is called ‘Celcom Home Broadband’ with 10Mbps speeds for RM145/month, apparently there could possibly be three additional fiber tiers from Celcom, called Prime (8Mbps, RM148/month), Premium (12Mbps, RM168/month), and Elite (24Mbps, RM228/month). These three plans are not confirmed yet, as I’ll explain later.
The anonymous tip
This news was first reported by LowYat.NET on April 1st when it received an anonymous tip including a breakdown of the RM145/month plan, not inclusive of 6% GST, or course. Celcom Home Broadband comes with a fiber internet service, as well as the included voice line. According to LowYat.NET’s interpretation of its source, existing Celcom FIRST Gold subscribers could get a 50% off from that rate, for the first six (6) months (more on this later). As mentioned earlier, for RM145 a month, you’ll get 10Mbps speeds, and just like the other internet service providers (ISP), Celcom won’t be imposing any data quota for its fiber plans too.
It comes with VoIP service, and local calls to any network are at 8 sen per minute. IDD calls uses Celcom Postpaid’s usual IDD rates. Calls are also charged on a 30-second block. Retaining its mobile business model, Celcom Home Broadband also has a credit limit of RM400, in case you need to keep your landline phone calls in check.
Though registration fee is waived, there will be a stamp fee of RM10 when signing up. There is an installation fee of RM200 and an activation fee of RM100, but both are said to be waived too, at least for now. As for devices, Celcom Home Broadband’s modem and router will be given away for free, hence the 24-month contract. There is no mention of a free DECT phone though.
The newspaper advertisement
Celcom has also planned this way ahead by buying an advertisement space on our local newspaper The Star. SoyaCincau spotted the ad on the same day — April 1st. Here, it is confirmed that Celcom Home Broadband will only be available in residential addresses in the Klang Valley. This ad may also contradict LowYat.NET’s earlier interpretation; it says that early sign ups get to enjoy that 50% rebate mentioned previously, but did not specify that one has to be a Celcom FIRST Gold subscriber.
The inquiry call
I called up Celcom earlier this morning (around 7am) for more inquiries and were able to get a bit more information, though most of them are still unconfirmed at this point, because the representatives don’t seem to be very familiar with Celcom’s new fiber service.
First and foremost, the final rep on the call (I was being transferred once) said that Celcom Home Broadband will only be available to Klang Valley folks on Thursday, April 7th 2016. As expected, signing up for it will tie you up to a 24-month contract.
She also corroborated the advertisement that non-Celcom subscribers can sign up, and get to enjoy the 50% rebate for six months as well.
However, here is where it gets dubious. When asked whether the speeds are symmetrical, I had to first explain what that meant, to which she said that all their fiber plans are symmetrical, but the upload speed “may be a little bit different”.
Also dubious is this. After being put on hold twice, she came back with a total of four Celcom fiber plans. She said the first one is called Prime, which, at RM148/month, will give you 8Mbps. The second one is called Premium, which is RM168/month for 12Mbps. The final one is Elite, at RM228/month for 24Mbps.
While this may turn out to be true, the information doesn’t seem reliable. Why is Prime, RM3 more expensive than the standard Celcom Home Broadband (CHB), and offers only 8Mbps which is slower than CHB? When asked this question, the rep wasn’t able to give a straight answer; she said, CHB is now on a promotion, “that’s why it’s cheaper”. Fine. If that’s the case, what is CHB’s normal price then? The rep doesn’t know the answer to that either.
The bottom line
The fact that Celcom’s website doesn’t even have the details yet, isn’t helping to clear out the confusion, but if the April 7th date given is reliable, we should know more about Celcom Home Broadband plan(s) in a few days. Bottom line is, while Celcom’s Prime, Premium, and Elite fiber plans could be a real thing, what the blue telco is pushing is its main Celcom Home Broadband plan. At RM145/month for 10Mbps, the price was competitive for the Malaysian market. I say “was” because back in 2012 when Maxis began offering its 10Mbps fiber internet, it was priced at RM138/month. Even after its revamp of the MaxisONE Home plans, Maxis’ 10Mbps plan is still priced at RM148/month. Telekom Malaysia (TM) UniFi’s 10Mbps was RM199/month, and still is.
Things have been more competitive lately; TM now has its UniFi ADVANCE 30 (Mbps) for RM199/month, and though the upload speed is not the same as download, it has been increased from 5Mbps to 10Mbps recently. And if you happen to live in a high-rise that has TIME, chances are, you are already a subscriber and have been enjoying the upgraded speeds.
So who is this plan for anyway? Symmetrical bandwidth purists, for one. Celcom Home Broadband’s monthly commitment (RM145/month) puts it slightly cheaper than Maxis’ 10Mbps plan (RM148/month), and UniFi VIP 10 (Mbps) plan that’s still at RM199/month. Since both Maxis and TM are already in the process of deprecating their 10Mbps fiber plans, that will open up the space for Celcom.
You may think that Celcom is new to the ISP business, but it did have its own Celcom FIRST Home internet plans back in 2012. After the hiatus, Celcom’s return to the ISP industry is a direct result from its three-way deal with TM and TM‘s subsidiary, Packet One Networks (P1), where TM gives Celcom access to its “high-speed broadband” (fiber) network. In return, Celcom becomes the Domestic Roaming partner of P1, effectively enabling P1 to be a 4G LTE player. Speaking of which, P1 will also be announcing its new 4G LTE plans next week.
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