One thing that was really important for me to get was Broadband Internet. Since there was only one internet service provider available to us we did not have the luxury to choose and had to stick with Malaysia’s biggest: Streamyx.
Tuesday: Since Streamyx belongs to the Malaysian Telecom they made sure that you cannot get Streamyx without also renting a telephone line from them. So first we had to get the phone line (which we won’t need, what for? Mobile calls are dirt dump cheap.) transferred over from the previous owner (50 RM + deposit, + stamp fee = ca. 130 RM, one hour of our time).
Since we were in the TM point already I actually intended to apply for Broadband right away, however, we were told to come back in two or three days. I suppose taking care of two different things for one and the same customer might be overly exausting for TM employees.
Saturday: we went in to TM point and applied for Streamyx. I was seriously surprised how fast that was done, half an hour only. It’s going to be 88 RM per month for a 1meg line. We bought a modem there also. They had two to choose from, one shiny black box for ca. 115 RM and one plain grey for about 80 RM. I asked the lady at the counter what the difference was, she was very open about it: none! We went with the grey one.
So far so good. We were supposed to wait for three days now before we could activate the user account by SMS.
Monday: I tried loging in, which of course didn’t work yet, but I was currious (and a little impatient, too). I tried the SMS activation thing, it failed.
Tuesday: I tried SMS again: failed. Well, I thougth, maybe they meant we should wait for three working days… sat, mon., tues, > Wednesday
Wednesday: SMS failed. Login didn’t work. I called the support and asked them what I could do. They told me to… wait. After seven days the account would automatically be activated. Ah, seven days! Nice.
Thurday: SMS failed. Log in didn’t work. I called the support hotline and was told to… wait. I waited.
Friday: SMS failed. Log in of course didn’t work. I called my friends at the hotline and asked them what I could do now and they suggested I might… wait
Saturday: Login still didn’t work. My friend at TM support suggested I might wait a little longer, since the account would be automatically activated after seven days. I pointed out to my new best friend that from Saturday to Saturday it was pretty much seven days and after a puzzled minute of silence he suggested to… wait.
Sunday: I waited. After waiting until afternoon I still could not log on to my shiny new 1 meg high speed internet connection and decided to give my buddies at TM a call. After he suggested to me to wait a little longer to see what might happen around Tuesday or Wednesday. I insisted he launched a support ticket so that someone could figure out why the acount wasn’t activated. He did (I think).
Monday (yesterday): Waiting paid off! When I tried to log on in the afternoon a I was…
first: seriously surprised that password and username were accepted
second: impressed that the whole thing, despite numerous complaints of other people about speed and performance, was fast!
Beauty, radio streams, skype, youtube and so on… and all accesible from the comfort of our home - sweet.
but hold on… later that day, after I set up everything nicely, and had created another user account for the wife (so she wouldn’t mess up my files 
) the internet service deteriorated rapidly.
Several times it was unreachable, if it connected it was painfully slow and terminated after a few minutes. I wasted about an hour trying to get a decent connection - to no avail. I was disillusioned. If that is, why the contract specifically states that service is provided on a “best effort basis”, I seriously hope that this is not the best Streamyx can do.
We’ll see how it goes over the next few days. I hope that there will be fast and reliabel service throughout the day and not only during office hours, before everyone comes home and goes online. What’s the point of having broadband speed available only during the time you’re not at home?
I’m curious to see how this thing will develop. And maybe I should learn to be a little more patient (well, those who grow up here, are used to it anyway.).
(Update: Streamyx Part II )
Vor einigen Wochen bekam ich eine nette Anfrage, ob ich nicht Lust hättr für einen Frühstücksservice ein Maskottchen zu entwerfen. Ein Marienkäfer sollte es sein. Na, da sag ich natürlich nicht nein und hab gleich ein paar Skizzen entworfen.
Die hier sollte es dann sein.
