For over 15 years, I have been with Singtel (or Singnet as what it was called in the old days), Started from 28.8kpbs dial-up modems and went on to their ADSL broadband technology, started 128kbps to 256 kbps, 512kbs, 1Mbps . In 2016, I am still on a 3mbps Singtel ADSL plan. Singtel no longer offers ADSL plans as part of their internet bundles or standalones, time to look out for others.

Why didn’t I upgrade earlier?

My requirements was to get an internet subscription without any bundles. My Singtel ADSL plan is about S$25 bucks and I didn’t want any thing which cost more than 2 times more.

Singtel tends to bundle a lot of stuff in to the plan,  with an internet plan, you get mio tv, a home land line, x % of discount of a mobile subscription, etc. Looking at the other 2 big telco providers it is about the same, bundles and more bundles. . M1 came out with a lower end Home broadband plan when I checked earlier this year, a 300 mbps plan for S$29.90 but it still came bundled with a fixed line and other stuff.. Starhub had a 300mbps internet plan @ S$29.90. ViewQwest and My Republic came with 1Gbps internet only plans which cost S$49.90 – S$69.90. Something which i felt was an overkill.

Moving on the ViewQwest Fibre

At the June 2016 PC show, ViewQwest came out with a limited time 350mbps plan going for S$29.90. Since it was just the internet i decided to go ahead and try them out. The difference between the 350mbps vs the 1gbps line is that the equipment will be delivered via courier and setup will be done by oneself rather than an engineer. Of course you can have an engineer come down but it will cost you S$80 more

Below is the price plan offered during the PC Show 2016.

The 350mbps was actually just offered just for the 4 days of the 2016 PC show, however it was extended for another 2 weeks. I chose to sign up online and got a call the next day to confirm my order. The provisioning took another 2 weeks by Nucleus Connect and it took another week for ViewQwest to deliver via courier.

The courier used was Ninja Van, which I felt was not a good choice. Received an SMS to choose self pickup or delivery and it showed the next day delivery which i opted for however i waited another 3 days before i got my package. Asking ViewQwest or Ninja delivery on the status of the package after receiving that SMS was frustrating as no one seem to know where the package was and kept asking me to wait for the package

Setup

The delivery came as the above shrink wrapped. One box was the ViewQwest ONT box and the other was the Asus RT-88U router which was ordered together at a promotional price.

The instructions were in the box, easy to follow and setup accordingly.

My final Setup as below. Overall its not difficult at all to set this up even if one has little or no IT background. Just follow the instructions. 🙂

1st two weeks of usage

Just for comparison purposes, below is my old 3mbps Singtel ADSL speed direct from my Asus DSL-N55URouter.

For the first few days of usage from ViewQwest i got only following results from the Asus RT-AC88U router, although overall the internet was faster but was quite demoralising to see this kind of speeds.

However if it is  connect from the ONT box. i was able to get the advertised speeds! So its the link from the ONT box to the Asus RT-AC88U box.  After feedback and troubleshooting done on both ViewQwest and my end, i am able to get the below speeds out from the Asus RT-AC88U. Not sure what really helped on this but i believe some works were done in the back end which may have helped on getting the speeds. While ViewQwest has claim some throttling of speeds, to date even during peak hours speeds are still around 300Mbps+.

With the speed trouble had the opportunity to test their helpdesk. Calling their main helpdesk line was a disaster, as no one answered the line after 30 mins. i gave up after trying to twice, however ViewQwest also used FaceBook chat which helped to log down the case.. A technician called me back after talking via FB chat to troubleshoot, but was disappointing as he kept repeating the steps (disable firewall, check windows setting, disable services, check router settings) over and over again. After 1 hr and the half, still got no where and we had to end the call as his shift ended. Helpdesk support not really there however it is lucky ViewQwest had the FaceBook chat as support to help escalate to their backend.

Final thoughts

Overall it is what I am looking for. No bundles (mobile plans, additional IP addresses, TV etc) added on. Price point not a big increase from what i was paying in the past. Another interesting point with ViewQwest if you make a annual payment, there is another 5% discount! not sure if this is available with the others.

The installation was easy and fast, no frills. However the initial speed had issues, however considering that this is a new plan from them and being solved backend after a week, will not pinpoint this too harshly. Perhaps it could be some configuration issues and hopefully the speeds will remain as good as it is for now.

Not sure if ViewQwestwill continue offering this 350Mbps plan or similar at future IT shows, but for those who are moving off from the slow cable or ADSL internet, and wish to have a simple inexpensive internet plan, this can be a good alternative.

Thoughts? Comments? Do share with us!