Overpromising P1 Wiggy?

P1 Wiggy was launched with the tagline of being the fastest USB Broadband up to 10Mbps in the market. However some users are complaining that the 10 Mbps speed is hardly achievable and average speed hardly even reach half of the claimed speed. There’s a discussion at Lowyat.net where a user is complaining of the Wiggy being over promised and under delivered to its customers. P1 Wiggy was advertised of having downlink up to 10Mbps but average speed was only around 1.0-3.0Mbps. That is only 30% of the maximum speed claim.

Other claims of up to speeds
To be fair, other wireless broadband competitors in the market also used “up to” speed claims as well. Most commonly are the 3G/HSDPA players that mentions “up to 3.6Mbps” and “up to 7.2Mbps” on their marketing materials.

When it comes to actual usage, some users claim speeds as high as 2.0Mbps or as low as dial up 100kbps.  Of course, a lot of people made noise about these false advertising claims and the best solution was to allow users to return their device and get their money back. Fortunately, most 3G providers now provided an option for early termination but with a penalty fee if they wish to terminate before a stipulated period.

DiGi Broadband however tried a different approach of using “average speed“. Although it is average, this could be an advantage or disadvantage to them. In a market where people are shouting the highest capable speed, DiGi’s average speed offering would be frowned upon against the rest. At the same time DiGi would need to struggle to ensure that average speed is maintained as well. From this comparison, DiGi tried a conservative approach to win customers but the low average speed is drowned by the higher speed claims of its competitions.

Until today, there is no regulation on mobile broadband speed claims and the telcos are giving a free hand on defining their own speed promises. The “up to” claims is very subjective and to most telcos, it is the maximum speed possible, not guaranteed speed. Unless MCMC introduces a service speed guideline, telcos will continue to make full use of the “up to” speed claims which is perceived to be fooling the general public.

Our thoughts on Mobile Broadband
For Mobile Broadband, the main priority would be on mobility first, and speed second. This simply means users should be able to use it in most populated areas with an acceptable speeds of “broadband” terms. In Malaysia, broadband is defined as anything from 64kbps and above. We believe broadband should at least be 384kbps and continue to be  raised higher in tandem with broadband content trends. For example it could be as simple as loading normal quality youtube videos with no buffering.

Our thoughts on P1 Wiggy
As a new entry in the Mobile Broadband arena, P1 should have market mobile broadband in a different way. Unfortunately, they too had joined the same mud fight style as other telcos in shouting the “up to” speed claims up to 10Mbps. To be fair, they are not entirely wrong as it never guaranteed a speed promise but consumer trust would be somewhat compromised as a result of delivering only 30%. 

It is normal for anyone to bang on P1 WiMAX for failing to achieve the claimed up to 10 Mbps speed but not many would notice that achieving 3Mbps is still one of the fastest achievable speed for a mobile broadband on the go. We hope that P1 marketing team would evaluate and reposition the speed of the Wiggy.