Malaysia VS UK
We were recently introduced to a UK site called Broadband Genie. This site lets you compare prices of broadband and mobile services from a wide range of service providers in the UK. It also includes a speed test and a library’s worth of Broadband related information and news. Pretty useful if you were in the UK and looking for the best broadband deals.
Interestingly enough, the first thing you might notice is the sheer number of different broadband providers there are in the UK, although it’s about the same size as Malaysia.
Let’s compare a few UK packages with UniFi.
UniFi 5Mbps, 60GB download limit = RM149 (GBP31.15)
UniFi 10Mbps, 90GB download limit = RM199(GBP41.60)
UniFi 20Mbps, 120GB download limit = RM249 (GBP52.05)
More on UniFi consumer broadband packages click here
A part of the list of broadband deals from broadband Genie
Let’s take number 2 as an example. The Sky Broadband package includes free setup, 20Mbps download speed with unlimited download for only GBP11.25 (RM53.77) with a 12 month contract. Compare that with the 20Mbps UniFi Package (RM249) which is about 5 times more expensive.
But you might wonder why? Why are the prices so much cheaper in the UK and can the prices go down? and does competition really help to lower prices?
Internet Penetration
A comparison of the internet penetration in the UK and Malaysia as publishedhere. Falkland Islands top the list with 100% internet penetration.
United Kingdom – 82.5 %
Internet Users: 51,442,100
Population : 62,348,447
Source – ITU – June/10
Malaysia – 64.6 %
Internet users : 16,902,600
Population : 26,160,256
Source ITU – June/09
The difference of 34,539,500 in internet users between the countries is surely one of the biggest factors that contribute to the difference of price of the broadband services in both countries.
To put it in a simple analogy, lets say you bought a wireless router for your home for RM100. But you are the only one using it. That means you have to bear the whole cost of the wireless router, whereas if 5 people in your family share the usage, each of them only has to bear RM20 of the total cost of the wireless router. Same goes to the internet network infrastructure. The more people using it, the less it costs per user.
In Malaysia there are only 3 main consumer fixed broadband services which are TMnet, Jaring and P1 4G .
YES would be coming soon with its device for the use of 4G at home. I think more competition can help reduce prices, but only to a certain extent. Hey, they still have the cost of the infrastructure to worry about. Companies naturally have a target number of users they have to get in order to achieve a cheaper monthly rate, but if they don’t achieve the targeted amount of users, they might be operating at a lost, or suboptimum profit levels.
So if you are hoping for broadband prices to go down, comparable to the UK prices, you are going to wait for a long time. Probably if we produce more children and achieve a population equal to the UK, there might be hope.
Else we just have to make do with what we have now
