Broadband in Malaysia

In effect, there are only two Internet service providers (ISPs) providing nation-wide Internet access in Malaysia: Jaring and TMNet; and both relies on Telekom Malaysia to provide the telephony infrastructure to their subscribers.

We do not sell products from other ISPs because of their limited coverage.

The third true competitor is Packet One, currently deploying one of the first WiMax grid in the world.

Once you are on the net, there is really nothing preventing you from using any other ISP's name servers as your DNS servers.

More information about Malaysian ISPs

Packet One Name Servers

Packet One name servers are located in the same building.

Packet One current provide the cheapest and fastest effective bandwidth on every price points against either Streamyx and Jaring. Note that if you are P1's subscriber, you can't use TMNet's nor Jaring's name servers.

TMNet Name Servers

TMNet name servers are located in different geographic regions, and logically grouped into two network segments. This is a very smart setup in that it is very easy to maintain and support: just pick one server from each segment and you are done.

Unfortunately there is no way of telling where the servers are located. So if you want to maximize your Internet performance, you will have to check the latency yourself to see which name server is closest to you and use it as your primary DNS.

Also, its simplicity is both a blessing and a curse: if the router in your area can't reach both network segments, you can't access the Internet even if all the name servers are still running. Fortunately there is a way around it: you can use Jaring's name servers.

Jaring Name Servers

It is obvious that Jaring's setup is more mature, but it also appears to be a network administrator's nightmare. As Internet usage increased, Jaring just kept throwing in name servers and mail servers to coup with the demand.

It seems that in the beginning Jaring really planned the deployment of its name servers very thoughtfully, unfortunately the subsequent commercialization of the Internet was not as thoughtfully implemented.

If you do use Jaring's name servers, but forewarned that Jaring may streamline its operation and eliminate some of the name servers in the future.

Also Jaring is quite determined to limit access to its DNS servers. It almost always follow this life cycle that repeats every six to nine months:

1. resolve names for everybody from anywhere, then
2. only resolve name for Jaring's hosted domains if queried from any network other than Jaring's, then
3. resolve name for domains end in "jaring.my" if queried from other ISPs, then
4. block access from external network, then half-day later realize that the whole Jaring network is disconnected, thus frantically re-open many of its firewalls, etc., including reconfiguring its name servers to allow all access, effectively going back to step 1.

Singapore Name Servers

The Internet is supposed to be a collaborative friendly network of networks. The closest name servers outside of Malaysia reside in Singapore. Below are some name servers from Singapore's Pacific Internet, SingNet, and StarHub.

These name servers are listed for reference only, you should not use them.

Open Name Servers

There are people generous enough, or insidious enough, to offer DNS service for free. These Open DNS servers use AnyCast technology to automatically get the server closest to you to respond to your query, therefore at times offering better performance than a local DNS server.

These name servers resolve all names, and in their default configuration will also resolve censored domains.

Price/Performance Comparison

Unfortunately an apple to apple straight comparision isn't possible, due to a variety of factors. In general we observed the followings:

Jaring offers the fastest, the most robust, the most reliable, but also the most expensive and the least coverage, Internet access. They have wisen up considerably and their technical team is the most competent and is of international standard.

Packet One offers the best price at any given performance. Its network is less reliable as it seems to be still experimenting with various optimations, some of which, like aggressive caching, are not suitable to corporate customers or web professionals. Its tech support is the friendliest of all the ISPs, if only because there is nothing to support: the modems are pre-configured, and end-users are not allowed to access and tweak the modems they own.

Streamyx network is over saturated. It offers the cheapest packages, but the worst price/performance ratio. True throughput is typically less than 66% of package's advertised bandwidth. Tech support quality is highly uneven, as most of whom could only follow preset scripts.

MTU

If you are TMNet subscriber, set your MTU to 1500, period. (for most subscribers, it simply means "don't change a thing")