KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — The days of Streamyx broadband are coming to an end as Telekom Malaysia (TM) no longer accepts new registrations for Streamyx (aka Unifi Lite) for both consumer and business users.

This comes as TM is accelerating the deployment of fibre broadband access in line with the Jendela programme.

For users who are still relying on Streamyx or Unifi Lite for internet connectivity, the service is still available. TM aims to migrate all remaining users to faster fibre broadband connectivity by 2025.

This would mark an end of an era after TM discontinued its 1515 dial-up service on 1st October 2017.

Here’s TM’s statement in full on the discontinuation of new registration for Unifi Lite and Business Broadband:

Unifi Lite aka Streamyx no longer available for new subscription

At the time of writing, TM has already removed "Unifi Lite” on its Unifi website. If you hover over Shop > Broadband on the top menu, you’ll only find Fibre and Wireless Broadband options available to consumers.

Before the page was removed, TM was offering Unifi Lite with up to 8Mbps downloads and unlimited TM fixed-line calls for RM89/month.

That’s the same subscription fee as TM’s entry-level 30Mbps Unifi Fibre Broadband without the Unifi TV bundle.

To recap, Streamyx was launched in April 2001 and it is an ADSL (Asymmetric digital subscriber line) technology that uses copper infrastructure.

During its introduction, it had a base speed of just 384kbps which was already 6-10 times faster than a typical dial-up connection. Eventually, they offered higher speeds of up to 8Mbps subject to availability.

During its peak, TM was charging as high as RM160/month for its highest 8Mbps option.

There has been tremendous pressure to improve broadband connectivity for the masses in the past few years, especially when MP Gobind Singh Deo was appointed the Communications and Multimedia Minister during the Pakatan Harapan administration.

In 2018, he criticised TM repeatedly for the lack of action for Streamyx users who were paying a high subscription fee for slow ADSL connectivity.

According to TM’s 2017 financial report, TM had 2.3 million broadband users and 1.2 million of them are still on Streamyx.

Eventually, TM revamped its fibre broadband offering with a cheaper 30Mbps fibre plan at RM79/month, while existing Unifi customers were given turbo upgrades with up to 10X faster speeds at no extra cost.

To upgrade users outside of fibre coverage areas, TM introduced Unifi Air, a 4G LTE wireless broadband service, that offered unlimited quota that promises to offer average speeds of 20Mbps for RM79/month.

Less than 280,000 Streamyx customers remaining

The number of Streamyx users has been declining gradually and there are 278,000 Streamyx customers remaining as of Q4 2021.

TM has also gained a significant increase in Unifi Fibre broadband subscriptions with over 2.5 million customers at the end of last year.

The current Jendela programme aims to hit 7.5 million premises with fibre access by the end of 2022. As of December 31, 2021, there are a total of 6.848 million fibre passed premises nationwide. — SoyaCincau