Thoughts from Berakas

During this long weekend, I decided to revitalise my blog and start posting my thoughts again. Probably enough has been said about what happened to our country this week. I was one of those affected by the black-out, thankfully I had my Zoom! modem and I was able to stay online… not that I am addicted to the net.. no way!!

Anyway looks like everything is almost back to normal, in time for chinese new year. So my resolution is to blog more… so more of my thoughts coming soon to a newsfeed near you..!!

After an absence of a few weeks, I am back! I was not happy with my previous hosting company, so I have moved to a new one. Some things are still broken, so bear with me.

Although I am sitting in coffee bean with it’s blinkzone, I am on my Zoom! I have to say that I have been happy with the connection since the last time I posted. I get on average 2Mbps. I believe this is better than the competitors who seems to be congested recently. Blinkzone is about 400kbps. No bandwidth tests today though as I am busy downloading updates for my macbook.

The coverage for Zoom! is also increasing, places which were initially just UMTS are now HSDPA. The only thing I am curious about is whether some people are getting faster than 3.5Mbps anywhere. I am worried that they are only giving me 3.5Mbps on my 1st generation simcard and modem.

I did some speed tests of both services in Gadong, centrepoint area. I did a similar test last earlier this month at the same spot. At the time both had similar speeds. Unfortunately this time BMobile was very slow, despite having full signal strength and the HSDPA sign.

BMobile Zoom!



DST Go!

It is annoying that BMobile was very slow. I even tried disconnecting and reconnecting again but I still had similar results to this one.

Fastest speed I could get was this…. even with very heavy downloading. It went up to 54kb/s very briefly after the screenshot was taken. Disappointing, could it be the heavy user numbers or is it just espeed syndrome?

Sorry guys, I have not been able to post anything lately. I did have a weigh in that was not so great. I am back to 77kg. I have to review my food intake I guess.

These are some more testing on the 3.5G data plan. I have followed David’s advice and included a site in Texas in the tests.

This one was done in Bangar, Temburong. A bit biased because I think the place did not have good BMobile signal but it was less than 1km away from the BMobile offices. I wanted to repeat them but I kept getting just the 3G(UMTS) signal.

BMobile Zoom!



DST Go!

This test was in Tutong last week as well. This was close to the sports complex and it is quite promising. Note that the testing site in the Philippines was down during this time.

BMobile Zoom!


DST Go!

I will do more testings once I have done downloading stuff. Currently in Gadong, during lunch time so I guess it will test how congestion will affect the tests from last time. Till then, cheerio!

As I was saying, it has been a busy week for me. I almost forgot to weigh myself yesterday but managed to do it before breakfast. I lost almost a kilo. I am not sure what happened. I know I should be excited but I am a bit suspicious though.

Why am I skeptical about my last weight? I have been snacking more than usual, blame it on the endless meetings and briefings I have to go through last week. I managed to run 3 times since my last weigh in but it stopped due to a bit of discomfort around my left ankle. I felt a bit hungry during my weigh in yesterday, so maybe that was why. But I weigh myself weekly around the same time, wearing the same clothes, using the same weighing scale at the same spot. I am using an electronic weighing scale  so in theory there shouldn’t be any errors.

Maybe I am losing weight and I should just be thankful that I am heading in the right direction.

Sorry guys, I have not been able to go around testing the 3.5G devices. I managed to do a very brief test in Rimba on Saturday night. I wasn’t surprised that the speeds were slow. It could be due to so many people being online. The signal strength was above 60% on the device and on my phones. I know it was just one test site but even normal browsing was severely lagged. I should really do the tests again.

BMobile Zoom!

DST Go!

I will try to collate all the results I have so far once I have the time.

I hope you are not getting tired of hearing so much about Zoom! and Go! from me. I guess I have to cut down a bit> During my late run tonight, I kept thinking about promotions in Brunei. We tend to Ramble On posted something about promotions in Brunei and there is a discussion on free laptops in the BruneiForever forums.

I guess I was too quick to jump on the Zoom! bandwagon mainly because of the fact that I was going to save so much on the monthly fee. Anyway, my point is that free promotions in Brunei always have a catch. There is almost always an asterix at the end of free. I have always been wary of this asterix, as the saying goes “nothing in life is free”. The promotions by BMobile and DST further highlights this issue on what do we have to do to get the free items and is free REALLY FREE?

The first BMobile promo seemed simple initially. Pay $45 per month and get free laptop, free modem, free 4 years internet surfing. There was also a $69.90 per month package for 2 years with free laptop, free modem and free 2 years internet. Seems like 4 years was a better deal, especially when you consider the price of the internet surfing was supposed to be $59. I was weary of how they managed to get the price so low including a free laptop but I must admit I was taken in by how much I would save if I took the deal there and then.
My speculation is that they chose $59 as the price for this package to make the promotion look attractive. Even the form you had to fill in had $30, $45 and $59 boxes to be ticked, so I honestly think they were going for these price points. But along comes a competitor with better prices and “Zoom!” goes Plan A and Plan B comes in whereby they still offer the same package but now the laptop is given “FREE” with an extra $15 on top of the monthly $30 2GB plan!! Only thing is that the laptop by definition is a loan, at $15 per month. You could also consider that they are selling the laptop at a $720 price.

They probably got this strategy from DST who also has a similar slogan. “Get a “FREE” laptop if you pay an extra $10 per month for 48 months” This works out to $400 dollars for their laptop. The marketing team must have figured out that the profit they get from each customer will pay for the laptop. In the case of the unlimited DST plan, 30 months of subscription is enough to offset the price of the laptop (the subscribers get it with no extra payment) while an extra $400 is needed to offset the price of a laptop in the first example.

Anyway my point is that FREE is not “really free” (quote from a forumer working for DST?) Their point view is that it is FREE if you pay an extra amount. My point of view is that I will get a laptop if I sign up for 4 years and on top of that pay an extra $10 a month.

Lastly (sorry long post) I thought I saved $672 plus received a free laptop by paying $45 monthly for 4 years but in reality, what I did was pay $30 monthly for 4 years and pay an extra $720 to get a laptop I don’t need!!

PS. The did receive a real free item, which was the modem. I would not have gotten it on on the Zoom! lite package but I would have received it free on the Zoom! unlimited package or the DST Go! annual deals.

A brief update, this is a special one for bruneiforever forumers. Speedtests were done this morning outside Blue Eden.
BMobile Zoom!


DST Go!

A second test in Bandar, around Jalan Sultan. I did this because I wanted to see why there was no HSDPA in STPRI are for BMobile Zoom!

BMobile Zoom!



DST Go!



I had two tests done there on Singapore server because for both DST and BMobile, it seems like the test was incomplete.
Will update this more later
Edit: Names are now proper

I managed to get hold of the DST Go! modem again yesterday and so I decided to do a bit of comparison with the BMobile Zoom!. I have the 1st generation BMobile modem as they are supplying new modems to new subscribers. I usually have my own personal way of assessing how fast a connection is (youtube, apple.com/getamac and downloading itunes files etc) and yesterday in Gadong, I found that both were similar

This morning I decided to standardise the tests. I decided to use speedtest.net as my test server of choice. Mainly because it is simpler to execute and it has nice graphics.

I was at one of the ministries in Jalan Menteri Besar this morning and so I got online with both and these are the results

Bmobile

DST

These mere my initial tests. Note that I did get more than 3000kbps on BOTH once I did a lot of multitasking (ie multiple pages opening etc)

Over lunch, I decided to test again while waiting in the car in Bandar (near STPRI). Unfortunately there is no 3.5G coverage for BMobile, which is strange considering Bandar is central. I will check around taman later this afternoon. Anyway the results were

BMobile

DST

I used two servers this time. I will do more testing during the day and comment on them later.

A brief update to my woes with BMobile, it seems like there are many early subscribers who are upset with BMobile Zoom who started complaining to their booths in ICC and to the helpline. Hopefully they are not just gonna say it is their right to change the pricing and plans.

Lost 0.5kg since last week and I am under 77 kilos. May not seem much but that is how much I plan to lose in a week, so hopefully by July I will be very close to my target weight. I was pleasantly surprised though as t seems like I haven’t been doing much or even taking care of my food intake. I guess a few small changes do make a difference in the long run. I celebrated by going for a run and breakfast out in Coffee Bean. I kinda misplaced my ipod nano and the Nike+ receiver so I have not been able to keep track of my runs or upload new runs.

A warm welcome to new readers of my blog. It is nice to hear from fellow runners from Brunei, although I am still a very slow and short distance runner. It gives me motivation to improve myself.