Malaysia Broadband options for your iPad

So the iPad is now officially available in Malaysia with Maxis being among the first to shout availability of iPad centric data plans. However did you know that there are other alternatives as well? Practically, you just need a data plan which comes in microsim or a MiFi device that lets you connect via WiFi. Let’s take a brief look at the choices available.

Maxis Plans

Maxis offers postpaid plans from RM70/month, where you’ll get 3.5GB of data which comes out to RM20/GB. For the heavy duty user, there’s the RM200/month plan that offers 15GB which comes out to RM13.33/GB. If you’re a light user, you can opt for Prepaid where you can top up RM58/month subsequently for 1.5GB for 30 days validity. You can read more on Maxis iPad plans here and here. In terms of speed, Maxis offers full download speed up to 7.2Mbps. For iPad WiFi, there’s an option to buy a Huawai MiFi device at RM380.

DiGi Plans

For DiGi, there are several ways to get your iPad connected. For prepaid, there’s Easy Prepaid that gives Max RM3/day access while the normal prepaid plans offer Max RM5/day. The cheapest prepaid offering is definitely their Prepaid Internet which comes ready in MicroSIM format where a RM10 top up gives you 5 days of access. That’s only RM2 a day. However do note that DiGi Prepaid download speeds are limited at 384kbps.

For postpaid, you have the DG Discovery plan at RM68/month that comes with 3GB of data quota. There’s even a Day time only Discovery day plan with 3GB at RM38/month that’s meant for 7AM-7PM usage. For WiFi users, there’s a DiGi MiFi bundling but for a much higher usage plan of 16GB at RM128/month.

U Mobile

U Mobile offers one of the best rates for 3G broadband especially if you’re a light user. If your place is covered with U Mobile’s 3G coverage, there’s the UB40 which comes with 2GB data at RM40/month with download speeds of 1.0Mbps. For heavy use, there’s the UB68 plan which offers 5GB of data at RM68/month with speeds up to 3.6Mbps. Do note that UB40 does charge excess usage as per normal PAYU rate while UB68 offers unlimited access at throttled speeds after hitting 5GB. There’s also a MiFi promo which offers the Huawei Mifi at RM210.

Best part is that conversion of SIM is Free on U Mobile.

Celcom

On Celcom, there are 3 plans which offers different quotas and speed. The lowest entry offers 1GB of data at RM48/month but with speeds capped at 384kbps. This is followed by Broadband Basic with 3GB of data at RM68/month with 512kbps speeds and Broadband Advanced with 5GB of data at RM98/month with speeds up to 3.6Mbps. There’s no MiFi offering that we are aware of and they charge RM10 for MicroSIM conversion.

Yes

Here’s a non-3G alternative — Yes. Since they are offering the Yes Huddle which is a MiFi device, it can be used to connect your iPads via WiFi. The Huddle package is quite a huge sum upfront at RM1199 but it offers RM1200 worth of credit but you also have the option to purchase the HUddle outright for RM399. On Yes, it costs RM30/GB for usage below 2.5GB and can be reduced to as low as RM21/GB for usage above 4GB. It is costlier if you’re heavy user but it is something worth considering if you’re looking at using 1 – 2GB per month. The upside with Yes is that you get the performance, we are currently using Yes on a day-to-day basis and the performance is really good. Of course, we’ll put out the caveat that the Yes network is still new with minimal load on it. So only time will tell if the people at Yes can maintain this amazing performance as more and more people get on their network.

(Update 1531hrs 30112010:) We’ve just gotten an update that Yes is currently having an iPad promotion where if you purchase an iPad from Machines in Lot 10 you can get the RM50 Yes ID activation fee waived when you purchase a Yes Huddle outright on the same day. The 10GB free usage is also applicable in this offer. This promotion is only for new Yes subscribers. The promotion starts today and ends December 5 31, 2010.

For full broadband pricing, do check out our Malaysian Broadband Price comparison. We will update the table with the new Maxis iPad plans shortly.

[ Flag Photo Credit ]