Things are rather busy at the telco front, what used to be easy and placid for the operators with steady stream of revenue, the big three are seeing new entrants disrupting their slumber and challenging their supremacy.

Malaysia’s mobile penetration has reached more than 140% in 2014 and is expected to maintain this rate over the next few years. This comes as no surprise as having a mobile device has become an essential for most, and a luxury to some. With the influx of devices in the market, the need for reliable provider of connectivity has also become equally as important, especially if you’re a smartphone user. After all, smartphone users are the biggest consumers for what telco providers have to dish out in the market.

This leads us to the on-going battle between the telco providers in Malaysia, vying for subscribers, who seem to have lost their staunch loyalty to a brand if and when something goes wrong. According to a survey by MCMC, a majority of users have no qualms in changing if other providers offer them cheaper rates of packages. Poor network coverage is the second highest reason for porting over to another.

So where does this leave service providers in Malaysia? Do they have what it takes to maintain their customer base? Well, PC.com has the scoop for you.

In this month’s Showdown, we pit the four main telco players in Malaysia – Celcom, Digi, Maxis and U Mobile – and see how their fair in our scrutiny when it comes to value, customer service and performance. We set out to plant our testers in various parts of the city to gauge key factors that determines if the network is worthy of calling itself The Best as many unabashedly do. While we used standard bandwidth speed apps for quality, our team we also using other methods to test on service and cost-per-value. Here are the players and their game-plans.

Blue Blood- Celcom Axiata 

A telco industry pioneer, Celcom Axiata Berhad, has been in the game for close to three decades. It is by far the oldest and holds many first in the industry; perhaps it is also the most innovative telco in the market.

Celcom was the industry darling, for both consumer and business postpaid plans. That has changed over the years with number porting between telcos has become easier. Loyalties are challenged. That said, they’ve not backed down of their claims of being numero uno in terms of number of subscribers and network coverage.

In sealing its commitment to the industry, Celcom has also forged partnerships with network infrastructure vendors, namely Ericsson and Huawei, to integrate, deploy and manage its 4G LTE developments in the country. 2016 is the year of investments and expansions for Celcom as it looks to expand its 4G service areas through this partnership.

Its postpaid plans, the Celcom First plans, are divided into three offerings: Blue, Gold and Platinum. If we were to compare Celcom’s plans with its competitors, it’s somewhere in the middle of Maxis and Digi – a mid-point in value for what they offer. 

Getting Competitive

Power users would appreciate what Celcom has in store for them. Though its most expensive plan, the First Platinum, has all the bells and whistles, the First Gold (mid-range) plan shines brighter than any other. It has the right balance between data and voice/sms for a minimum of RM80 monthly commitment.

With a total of 10GB (5GB+5GB on weekends) and unlimited calls and sms, the First Gold is now competitively

package offered by Digi for the same price. The major difference is the fact Celcom is more reliable in network stability and has wider coverage as compare to the latter. More on that below.

Customers Come First

Having experienced three out of four telcos in this showdown, I can safely say that Celcom gets my vote for overall customer service. The need to dial its call centre has significantly been reduced since the introduction it’s Online Customer Service portal to manage all your account needs.

There was an instance my line was barred during an overseas trip, and all I needed to do is login to the portal, initiate a Live Chat with one of the representative and request for temporary unbarring while I make payment (I needed my TAC number). All this was done within 15 minutes, and I was on my way. Somehow dealing with someone via keyboard and screen is better for my blood pressure than speaking to a rep on the phone who may or may not be cranky.

Meeting Expectations

Celcom doesn’t mess around when it says it has an undisputed No. 1 network coverage in the country. Going about running some network speed tests in the three locations, it was the most stable among the four – it never dropped below half for signal strength and keeping to 4G connectivity most times. And in most instances, it had the fastest download/upload speed in these three places.

Personally, I’ve experienced little to no drop calls even when the signal strength drops to just one bar – and I live at the edge of a rainforest in KL where a few other telcos can leave me virtually uncontactable. 

Yellow Fever- Digi Telecommunications 

Digi is one of the younger telcos in the lineup, set up after Celcom and Maxis has been setup for quite some time. Because of that, they have a younger corporate mind set when compared to the big blue and green telco. This is reflected with their demographic, which is more skewed towards the 18-36 age range.

However so, they are still a big player in the market, with recent numbers seeing them clinching more subscribers than ever before, even beating out Celcom and Maxis for the first time.

The service from Digi overall is quite satisfactory, especially with the recent drive that the company is taking to beef up and buck up on customer interaction as well as customer service online as well as offline. Better interaction between the company’s representatives and the end users are evident, however the level of interaction needs to be ramped up and the company need to instil a more proactive stance with their representative in customer relations.

Great Value

Digi is one of the more affordable telcos, with a great data to monthly commitment ratio, which translates to great value per gigabyte of data. Their current line-up of postpaid and prepaid offerings gives them a leg up when compared to their peers and competitors, as they have been making great strides on giving the best value for money to their customers.

The lowest plan that you can get from Digi is the New Digi Postpaid 68, which gives customers 3GB of data, with a 1GB of unused data rollover for the next billing cycle. Included in this plan is unlimited calls to all networks, and freebies such as one year free subscription to iFlix.

Service, please

The customer service (CS) for Digi can be a hit or miss depending on the time of day, temperature of your coffee and the status of the internet at any given time. Their social media team are hard at work to receive and help users when they are mentioned on twitter, but when you pick up the phone, the person on the other side can be either the most helpful or the most infuriating person to deal with.

We tried to ask for the Personal Unlocking Key (PUK) code for the Digi postpaid line, in case of any complications in the future, and 50% of the time, the transaction took more than 10 minutes to go through. We may chalk it up to the mood of the CS representative during the call, but the human interaction needs to be tweaked a bit further. 

On The Spot

In the three locations that we did testing, we have found that while Digi is not the strongest performer in data throughout, but it is the more stable amongst the four as we did not see sudden spikes in both upload and download speeds.

This bodes well for the company as with their current nationwide 4G rollout, we can say that Digi is the best performer for constant throughput, if not the one with the highest speed.

However Digi is prone to dropped signals for both calls and data when one is too deep in a building – in a basement car park, for example. Digi is also prone to lose signal when the phone is at the edge of the signal tower, so transitions from one cell tower to another may result in abrupt signal lost when in a call or downloading from the internet.

Green Grit- Maxis 

Since its inception in 1993, Maxis has since become the number one telco brand in Malaysia, boasting more than 10 million subscribers as of right now. Maxis was also the first telco to introduce the 4G LTE network to Malaysians, which enabled us to reach a new level of high-speed Internet. Maxis also introduced the era of smartphones to the Malaysian market by introducing the BlackBerry, Apple iPhone, and Samsung Galaxy series.

These days, MaxisONE is considered to be Maxis’s most popular package, boasting Internet data quota paired with unlimited calls and SMS for a monthly fixed rate. However, numerous competitors these days have been able to match or even lower the pricing on its own packages while increasing the Internet data quota, giving Maxis a real run for its money.

There Can Only Be One

Recently, Maxis introduced a major upgrade to the current MaxisONE plan, not only giving a significant increase to the current MaxisONE packages but also adding even more value add-ons onto its packages.

The MaxisONE 98 used to only come with 1GB of Internet data while the MaxisONE 128 came with 3GB, the MaxisONE 158 came with 5GB, and the MaxisONE 188 came with 7GB worth of Internet data. After the upgrade, these packages now will have 5GB, 10GB, 15GB, and 20GB of Internet data, respectively.

Aside from the increase, MaxisONE customers new and old will also receive an extra 5GB each month for video-on-demand streaming applications, allowing you to binge-watch your favourite TV series and movies to your heart’s content.

More Data!

Aside from the upgrade to the MaxisONE packages, Maxis also introduced its new Internet data-sharing feature called DataPool. For RM48 a month, you can now pool together all your Internet data a month alongside your entire family to create one huge pool of data where everyone can have a share of it. The DataPool can also be used while you and your family are overseas on vacation, allowing you to enjoy unlimited incoming and outgoing calls as well as data roaming.

Not So Steady

Although Maxis now offers greater Internet data quota with unlimited calls and SMS, there has been no change to the fixed monthly charges to the MaxisONE packages.

Another issue that could be a potential problem for Maxis is the current inconsistent signal service the Internet data has on users’ smartphones. After running speed tests to test the latency, download speed, as well as upload speed at three different locations around the Klang Valley, Maxis came up short almost always in all three areas as compared to its competitors. The three locations in question were KLIA, a transit hub; Taman Tun Dr. Ismail, a housing area; and Mid Valley Megamall, a shopping complex.

Orange Sting-  U Mobile

The youngest telco in our line-up of four service providers, U Mobile Sdn Bhd was launched in 2007 and gained quite a following with its product innovation and value proposition. A disruptor, who many users believe have helped bring the price of mobile service down.

U Mobile’s plans and packages have always been straightforward and simple. It certainly offers more value for money to consumers, seeing as even its most expensive plan is competitively priced as compared to the entry-level plans by the yellow, green and blue telcos.

Less For More?

The most talked about plans offered by U Mobile are its value plan (U28 at RM28 monthly) and premium plan (Hero Postpaid P70 at RM70 monthly).

For those with budget constraints, U Mobile has made it easy for these users to have entry and access to both competitive data and voice offerings. With 3GB of monthly data and up to 50 minutes call to all networks and 300 free SMS(100 free SMS to U Mobile network and 200 free SMS to other networks), the U28 plan is covers the needs of most casual smartphone users. Comparatively, to get a similar plan with other telcos, one would have to pay about three times more. The U28 is probably the most affordable postpaid plan out there!

Power users will definitely appreciate the newly launched Hero Postpaid P70. Users get unlimited call to all networks, paired along with 15GB (7GB+8GB) of internet quota. Though the additional 8GB promotion will only last until the end of this year, U Mobile’s top of the line plan isn’t very much exorbitantly priced for what you get. That said, this plan is data and voice centric as it does not have any free SMS included.

Though in providing such simplicity, the value added service and features are limited in U Mobile. The only extra service they provide, which I found useful, is the presence of an app to help manage usage. Other than that, popular services such as Spotify, iFlix and the likes are nowhere to be seen.

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The Average Joe

While the packages have amazing value, its customer service is just average. The navigation from the call was divided into existing customer and non-existing customer (I will not go into detail for this category). Overall, the navigation is clear and easily reachable to the problem that we try to resolve.

The waiting time was short and the customer service representative I spoke to was polite and curt – no real complaints here. Compared to my experience in the past, U Mobile have made some improvements in terms of structure of call and level of customer service friendliness.

Not Quite Covered

As far as coverage concern, the locations we tested on the signal was good and strong in areas such as Taman Tun Dr. Ismail, Mid Valley Megamall and KLIA2. These location shows off the versatility of U Mobile’s performance in different settings. In fact, it was second best when we ran out tests.

Out of Klang Valley and major cities like Penang and Johor, U Mobile’s coverage isn’t as far reaching as to its peers. Most locations would only receive 2G connectivity, including East Malaysia. Its 3G connectivity is available in most cities and towns in Peninsular Malaysia and the coast cities of East Malaysia. As for 4G, it’s severely limited to Klang Valley and Johor. Though the most value for money, extensive coverage is still an issue for the telco, and a concern for most consumers.  

 A Breakdown of Telco Plans 

Telco / Plans		First Blue	First Gold	First Platinum
Celcom	Min Monthly Commitment	RM45	RM80	RM180
	Data	4GB monthly	10GB monthly	18GB monthly
	Calls	50 minutes	Unlimited	Unlimited
	SMS	50 SMS	Unlimited	Unlimited
	Extras	–  Free unlimited streaming with Yonder Music – 2GB complimentary WiFiPlus	–  Free unlimited streaming with Yonder Music – 5GB complimentary WiFiPlus	– Unlimited access to iFlix for 12 months – 9GB complimentary WiFiPlus- Free messaging with Zipit Chat
Telco / Plans		Digi Postpaid 68	Digi Postpaid 78	Digi Postpaid 80
Digi	Min Monthly Commitment	RM68	RM78	RM80
	Data	3GB monthly	7GB monthly	10GB monthly
	Calls	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
	SMS	RM0.10 per SMS	RM0.10 per SMS	RM0.10 per SMS
	Extras	– Unlimited Whatsapp and Wechat – 30GB storage on Capture – Music Freedom (Spotify) – Unlimited access to iFlix for 12 months	– Unlimited Whatsapp and Wechat – 100GB storage on Capture – Music Freedom (Spotify) – Unlimited access to iFlix for 12 months	– Unlimited Whatsapp and Wechat – 100GB storage on Capture – Music Freedom (Spotify) – Unlimited access to iFlix for 12 months
Telco / Plans		MaxisONE Plan 98	MaxisONE Plan 128	MaxisONE Plan 188

Maxis	Min Monthly Commitment	RM98	RM128	RM188
	Data	5GB monthly	10GB monthly	20GB monthly
	Calls	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
	SMS	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
	Extras	– Free extra 15GB/month for Spotify – Free extra 5GB/month for streaming services. Unlimited access on iFlix, Viu, ErosNow and Hopster for 3 months	– Free extra 15GB/month for Spotify. Free subscription for Spotify Premium – Free extra 5GB/month for streaming services. Unlimited access on iFlix, Viu, ErosNow and Hopster for 3 months	– Free extra 15GB/month for Spotify. Free subscription for Spotify Premium – Free extra 5GB/month for streaming services. Unlimited access on iFlix, Viu, ErosNow and Hopster for 3 months
Telco / Plans		U28	P50	Hero Postpaid P70
U Mobile	Min Monthly Commitment	RM28	RM50	RM70
	Data	3GB monthly	5GB monthly	15GB monthly
	Calls	50 minutes	50 minutes	Unlimited
	SMS	300 SMS (100 to U Mobile, 200 to other networks)	RM0.03 per SMS to U Mobile, RM0.08 per SMS to other networks	RM0.03 per SMS to U Mobile, RM0.08 per SMS to other networks
	Extras	– Extra 3GB data for Video-Onz	– Extra 5GB data for Video-Onz	– Free unlimited streaming for Video-Onz

All In the Speed

Each of us were assigned to a telco and put them to the test. To streamline and minimise discrepancies, we visited three locations that we felt would best reflect the many factors of which could affect your network coverage experience, and used only one device – the Huawei Mate 8.  Read on for the results of the speedtests done via the Speedtest by OOKLA app.

Details / Telco		Celcom	Digi	Maxis	Umobile
Location: Midvalley Concourse Ground Floor
Server: Petaling Jaya (Celcom Axiata)	Ping (ms)	19	51	58	61
	Download (mbps)	70.14	32.39	16.05	24.5
	Upload (mbps)	24.03	16.99	18.64	14.07
Server: Singapore(SingTel)	Ping (ms)	99	55	71	22
	Download (mbps)	24.35	32.32	43.19	24.27
	Upload (mbps)	30.56	18.73	20.87	5.35
Location: Lim Tayar, Taman Tun Dr. Ismail
Server: Petaling Jaya (Celcom Axiata)	Ping (ms)	28	51	51	57
	Download (mbps)	15.17	10.01	6.17	13.32
	Upload (mbps)	15.84	7.20	18.63	15.59
Server: Singapore(SingTel)	Ping (ms)	238	52	54	29
	Download (mbps)	11.72	13.12	28.53	13.45
	Upload (mbps)	13.49	7.60	26.66	5.60
Location: International Departure Terminal, KLIA 2
Server: Petaling Jaya (Celcom Axiata)	Ping (ms)	31	50	65	56
	Download (mbps)	49.49	21.59	12.43	40.18
	Upload (mbps)	16.61	4.36	6.06	18.02
Server: Singapore(SingTel)	Ping (ms)	239	52	70	72
	Download (mbps)	23.61	20.95	10.87	37.81
	Upload (mbps)	21.78	4.33	5.25	15.92

 Conclusion

After conducting several tests as seen above, it is clear Celcom is the victor among the four big telco giants in Malaysia. Aside from providing consistent and stable cell service through extensive coverage, Celcom is an all-rounder that provides the most value for money when it comes to the eyes of the consumers, mainly through its postpaid plans in terms of Internet data quota, phone calls, and text messages.

Another major factor that pulled Celcom ahead of the pack was its dedicated customer service hotline, which is not only innovative (with its Celcom FIRST Platinum package, subscribers will get their very own dedicated priority service number with their very own personal service consultants to assist their every need), but also well-mannered and well-trained.

One other telco that deserves an honourable mention in our books is of course U-Mobile, due to its value for money plans, which are very data-centric, thus giving what most customers these days yearn for: more Internet data to surf the web while being active on various social media sites.