After all that hype of announcements and events, U Mobile finally starts “Registration of Interest” for its 42Mbps broadband modem. This runs on their newly announced HSPA+ network with speeds up to 42Mbps. No price plan or device pricing has been given but it all points to be revealed only next year.
In terms of coverage, Berjaya Times Square is the only place that’s covered but they mentioned that Subang Jaya and Sunway areas being rolled out right now. If you’re not staying in those areas, we’re not convinced how fast they could roll out to other area considering U Mobile is rather slow in coverage expansion as compared to the other players. In other words, don’t expect them to offer nationwide HSPA+ coverage anytime soon especially when they can’t even cover Peninsular Malaysia even for 3G coverage.
For now, this looks more appealing for college students around the Subang area next year.
Speedwise, U Mobile has mentioned that its 42Mbps HSPA+ network will give an average download speed of between 3 to 10Mbps with an average upload between 0.5Mbps to 1.5Mbps, which is less than 25% of its 42Mbps theoritical figure. We are expecting more but 3Mbps average is something that’s already faster than what we are getting from today’s 3G/HSDPA speeds in Malaysia. Hopefully that U Mobile will be able to manage traffic and congestions on their network properly when their HSPA+ goes into service. So far we don’t have much complains on their 3G broadband and they are quite affordable among the rest if coverage is not an issue in your area.
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