Internet Service Provider (ISP)

[maggiemee95]

Which ISP to go for?

 

[xiaofan]

Which ISP to go for?

What are the requirements?

Are you thinking of changing ISP or you want to sign up for a new place?

 

[maggiemee95]

Yes. I have been wanting to change my ISP for a long time. For the past 2.5 years, I have been using Singtel’s 1Gbps Fibre Broadband Plan.

Find it quite expensive, and also noticed my bandwidth getting slower since last year April.

Most importantly, I am looking for reliability in terms of being consistent, not much downtime reported, fast internet connection and provides good customer service.

 

[maggiemee95]

What are the requirements?

Are you thinking of changing ISP or you want to sign up for a new place?

Yes. I have been wanting to change my ISP for a long time. For the past 2.5 years, I have been using Singtel’s 1Gbps Fibre Broadband Plan.

Find it quite expensive, and also noticed my bandwidth getting slower since last year April.

Most importantly, I am looking for reliability in terms of being consistent, not much downtime reported, fast internet connection and provides good customer service.

 

[giraffey]

Yes. I have been wanting to change my ISP for a long time. For the past 2.5 years, I have been using Singtel’s 1Gbps Fibre Broadband Plan.

Find it quite expensive, and also noticed my bandwidth getting slower since last year April.

Most importantly, I am looking for reliability in terms of being consistent, not much downtime reported, fast internet connection and provides good customer service.

If reliability is the most important and based on massed outages, it is probably only Singtel being the most reliable. Perhaps, they are the largest and have better resources and investments in redundancies and recoveries. The next two M1 and SH still falls short occasionally. I would avoid the boutique isps loke BQ and MR is reliability is the biggest concern.

M1 would probably give the best customer services.

When it comes to speeds, I noticed it would be VQ and M1. This is just my personal take. They seem better (better latency) when accessing web services and websites that i frequent. But it depends on what you are accessing i guess.

If you are referring to slow bandwidth, it may not be an ISP issue only. It could be your network settings, faulty cables and equipment, faulty network cards, etc

 

[xiaofan]

Yes. I have been wanting to change my ISP for a long time. For the past 2.5 years, I have been using Singtel’s 1Gbps Fibre Broadband Plan.

Find it quite expensive, and also noticed my bandwidth getting slower since last year April.

Most importantly, I am looking for reliability in terms of being consistent, not much downtime reported, fast internet connection and provides good customer service.

Reliability: SingTel
Speed: SingTel and M1
Cost: Whizcomms or M1 or StarHub
Customer service: M1

Overall best for you: M1

Or you can stick to SingTel if you really think reliability is the most important factor for you.

I mainly use SingTel 1Gbps and it has been reliable since Feb 2012 (100Mbps then).

But many people In this forum do not like SingTel due to the use of ONR for new users (I have ONT), throttle of torrent speed (I do not use torrent), lousy bundled wireless router (I use my own router), so-so customer service (better than StarHub IMHO) and relatively higher cost (I got discount at S$39.9 so it is okay).

 

[badsector]

Yes. I have been wanting to change my ISP for a long time. For the past 2.5 years, I have been using Singtel’s 1Gbps Fibre Broadband Plan.

Find it quite expensive, and also noticed my bandwidth getting slower since last year April.

Most importantly, I am looking for reliability in terms of being consistent, not much downtime reported, fast internet connection and provides good customer service.

u want cheap plus all those great services?

 

[maggiemee95]

u want cheap plus all those great services?

Don't get me wrong. I just find Singtel's broadband plan more expensive than other telcos.

 

[xiaofan]

Don't get me wrong. I just find Singtel's broadband plan more expensive than other telcos.

You can negotiate with SingTel to see if they can offer you at S$39.9 with 2 year contract. If not you can consider M1 or Whizcomms. Whizcomms uses SingTel network.

 

[maggiemee95]

Reliability: SingTel
Speed: SingTel and M1
Cost: Whizcomms or M1 or StarHub
Customer service: M1

Overall best for you: M1

Or you can stick to SingTel if you really think reliability is the most important factor for you.

I mainly use SingTel 1Gbps and it has been reliable since Feb 2012 (100Mbps then).

But many people In this forum do not like SingTel due to the use of ONR for new users (I have ONT), throttle of torrent speed (I do not use torrent), lousy bundled wireless router (I use my own router), so-so customer service (better than StarHub IMHO) and relatively higher cost (I got discount at S$39.9 so it is okay).

Have to agree with the throttle of torrent speed, as well as the lousy bundled wireless router. (I am using ASUS RT-AC88U btw).

 

[giraffey]

M1 or Whizzcomm seems to be your best bet in terms of overall value.

 

[derrickgoh]

I have the same headache. Singtel 1 gbps plan expiring. Speed & reliability ok for the last almost 2 years. Only complaint is its using ONR. I am planning to get Asus XT8 mesh & using that n AP mode is such a waste.

So for me its either remain with singtel & die die set the XT8 in router mode which will result in double NAT. Not great cost amongst other things, I understand i’ll have issues with VPN.

Or move to M1 which uses ONT but I dunno what their network speed & reliability is like. Feedback i’ve read about starhub reliability & speed is quite terok so nah.

 

[xonix]

I think it really depend who you hear the feedback from.
M1 has been quite stable for me since I signed up with them but I hear people complain about them too.

However if you want to use your own router and maximise it's functions, SingTel is definitely out of the contention.

 

[derrickgoh]

I think it really depend who you hear the feedback from.

M1 has been quite stable for me since I signed up with them but I hear people complain about them too.

I know. Its like starhub lor. Many differing views. And TBH sometimes could be user using lousy router. So unless everyone is using a decent router if not hard to say.

Tao tia. M1 or starhub? Sigh! Im not rich lah but if its a bit more ex i dont mind if speed & reliability is good. So in that sense budget not an issue.

Customer service for starhub is crap. Used to be on starhub tv & now on starhub mobile. CS for singtel is crap too. Im on singtel fibre & TV. Was on m1 mobile for over 10 years & agree their CS is better.

But ultimately for me its an issue of speed & reliability. I am planning to get Asus XT8 which is a solid mesh system but if ISP speeds are crap, what’s the point? As for reliability, i used to be with viewqwest for over 6 years. Can vomit blood especially towards the end.

 

[derrickgoh]

Went to m1 & starhub website to look see. Wah why so much variance in their typical download speeds sia?

M1 website shows 472 to 917 mbps & Starhub website shows 886 to 971 mbps.

https://www.m1.com.sg/support/typical speeds
https://www.starhub.com/personal/home-broadband/typical-broadband-speed-plans.html

Are both companies comparing differently? Anyone know why m1’s speeds are significantly slower than starhub?

 

[miloaisdino]

Went to m1 & starhub website to look see. Wah why so much variance in their typical download speeds sia?

M1 website shows 472 to 917 mbps & Starhub website shows 886 to 971 mbps.

https://www.m1.com.sg/support/typical speeds
https://www.starhub.com/personal/home-broadband/typical-broadband-speed-plans.html

Are both companies comparing differently? Anyone know why m1’s speeds are significantly slower than starhub?

its probably just for these few months (wfh). m1 tends to invest more on quality international routes (latency wise) so the local contention ratio is not as good as starhub or singtel, causing local speeds to drop when too many are online at a time

 

[xiaofan]

I have the same headache. Singtel 1 gbps plan expiring. Speed & reliability ok for the last almost 2 years. Only complaint is its using ONR. I am planning to get Asus XT8 mesh & using that n AP mode is such a waste.

So for me its either remain with singtel & die die set the XT8 in router mode which will result in double NAT. Not great cost amongst other things, I understand i’ll have issues with VPN.

Or move to M1 which uses ONT but I dunno what their network speed & reliability is like. Feedback i’ve read about starhub reliability & speed is quite terok so nah.

You have another choice, Whizcomms, using SingTel network, and you can request them before installation to configure the ONR in ONT mode, and they do not use vlan as far as I know.

https://www.whizcomms.com.sg/promotions/june-special-2020/

Promotion now, S$36.9 per month.

 

[badsector]

Don't get me wrong. I just find Singtel's broadband plan more expensive than other telcos.

i've not tried singtel broadband. do not like their ONR
but i'm on singtel mobile

MR & VQ, personally i have bad experiences. i've even return the ONT before contract ends. (yearly payment)

 

[derrickgoh]

You have another choice, Whizcomms, using SingTel network, and you can request them before installation to configure the ONR in ONT mode, and they do not use vlan as far as I know.

https://www.whizcomms.com.sg/promotions/june-special-2020/

Promotion now, S$36.9 per month.

Their website can’t even load properly on my iPhone. Not a very good start. Lol! Would have thought an ISP would make sure their website works on all devices.

 

[derrickgoh]

i've not tried singtel broadband. do not like their ONR
but i'm on singtel mobile

MR & VQ, personally i have bad experiences. i've even return the ONT before contract ends. (yearly payment)

VQ sucks for sure, former customer here. Care to share what was wrong with m1?