KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 — It was reported that the government is aiming to upgrade all Streamyx users to Unifi by March next year. This was mentioned by Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister, Eddin Syazlee Shith, during a question time in Parliament yesterday. 

In his reply to Senator Ismail Ibrahim, who had asked about the government’s measures to tackle the Streamyx issue, Eddin Syazlee has said that services were being upgraded in stages provided the users are in areas with access to Unifi.

He also mentioned that if a user is out of range or have no Unifi access, the alternative is that their Streamyx speed will be upgraded to 8Mbps or they will receive access via 4G LTE. He also highlighted that all of these upgrades will be free of charge with no additional cost.

TM had issued a statement today to clarify on the Streamyx upgrade process. They mentioned that existing Streamyx customers who are not residing in Unifi coverage areas will be offered a speed upgrade of 2X of their existing speeds up to 8Mbps.

This means if you’re on 1Mbps, you’re getting 2Mbps and if you’re on 2Mbps, you’ll get 4Mbps. Not everyone will be getting 8Mbps across the board. During its initial announcement in July, TM did mention that existing 340,000 Streamyx customers are able to switch to Unifi Fibre broadband, while another 350,000 customers will be getting 2X speed upgrade. 

In the same press statement, TM has also updated that 60 per cent of 340,000 Streamyx customers in Unifi areas have already made to the switch to Fibre, while maintaining the same price as their current plan. That leaves about 136,000 Streamyx customers that have not yet switch to Unifi.

TM is continuously contacting eligible Streamyx customers to convert to Unifi. They also urged all customers to update their mobile phone and email address on the Unifi Portal or self care app, so that they can be contacted for the upgrade. 

TM has also provided an update that 70 per cent of subscribers outside of Unifi have already gotten their 2X speed upgrade and there are remaining 65,000 customers that have yet to move to higher speeds. If 30 per cent is 65,000 customers, that means only about 151,600 have gotten 2X faster speeds. This calculates to a total of 216,000 customers eligible to get double speeds on Streamyx instead of the initial 350,000 figure as illustrated above. TM also iterates that the maximum speed they can go on copper is 8Mbps. 

Another alternative for these users is to switch to Unifi Mobile’s LTE wireless broadband solution. They currently offer 60GB for RM79/month. For those who are unable to upgrade, TM says they are seeking a collaborative win-win approach with the government and other industry players. — SoyaCincau