Ever since bmobile and DST launched their mobile broadband offerings (Zoom! and Go!)I was interested to see which one offered the best deal. I’ve had a few weeks with the bmobile’s Zoom! service using the older modem with 3.6Mbps max speeds and did some speed tests and real world tests. In the real world tests it got frustrating at times with quite a few timeouts and YouTube videos loading only to stop loading half way. Real world download tests weren’t fantastic, typically under 512kbps which is even slower than the lowest tier E-Speed plan. My regular locations were at home in Jalan Kebangsaan Lama, and at the old airport road which is basically just across Telbru Headquarters. After a while I found out that doing a regular speed test at Speedtest.net was not giving optimal results, I would get less than 300kbps (~40KB/s) download speeds but in actual fact when I download podcasts I would get over 500kbps (~60KB/s) easily.
I found that if I do multiple downloads/connections I would be able to get faster speeds. I was able to roughly max out the modem to the full 3.6Mbps connection (but that was close to Telbru, not at home). At home torrenting some music off Jamendo managed to get up to 100KB/s but it was not consistent. Below shows a torrent downloading at over 200KB/s.
I know location and people/connection saturation are important factors for any mobile broadband connections and honestly I’m pretty jealous of David Cheok’s reports on his Go! getting good speeds in Subok
“actually.. have been getting avg 500KB daily.. last night was good coz it broke 700KB..” (via Twitter)
He also went on to say the following statement which I totally agree with:
“if downloading is your thing, Go for GO. If good response time/less lag, Zoom. Even better, espd.” (via Twitter)
That also brings me to another important fact that Go! seems to have pretty bad upload speeds (up to 20x less than Zoom!). If you’re planning on uploading photos or doing some streaming video from your webcam or even Skype, Go! may not be the answer you’re looking for. For anything to do with uploads, stick to E-Speed or Zoom!
Zoom! speedtests: Behind MOE (Old Airport), Jalan Kebangsaan Lama, Desa Cafe (Delima), Aman Complex, MOF
Go! speedtests: Behind MOE (Old Airport), Jalan Kebangsaan Lama, Giant
The Wheat Field 
Hi,
I’ve just subscribed to the new ZOOM! unlimited plan and have been using it for a week. I’m staying in Panaga area and what I have been experiencing so far are:
1. Surfing speeds are somewhat slower than my 512kbps espeed.
2. Http/ftp downloads are rather fast (up to 200KB/s) from what I’ve tested so far.
3. utorrent indicated that there’s no incoming connections, and the max speed attained is about 50KB/s at best, whereas my espeed can get up to 60+KB/s.
4. Google Maps/Youtube speeds are horrible!
So I’m kinda puzzled when you said that your torrents can reach 200KB/s. Are you using the USB modem or you have a 3G router? And my connection seems to loose connectivity after a while even though the modem is still connected.
I’m now deciding whether I should stick to my espeed and unsubscribe the ZOOM. Any comments?
Hi Eric, I’m was using the “3.5G modem” shown in the ‘Gadgets’ section on the Zoom! page. For records sake I was using Miro on OS X. Also when torrenting it depends on the seeds and other connections. Miro did not let me see peer details (e.g. number of peers & location) so couldn’t find out which peer/peers was/were giving me good download speeds.
Does utorrent show no incoming connections when using both E-Speed and Zoom! or only on Zoom!?
Based on your findings it seems that the Zoom! experience is pretty mixed. Seems good for normal non-torrent downloading which would be great for podcast downloads but YouTube experience and Google maps is bad. To alleviate the YouTube problem you can try some services to download YouTube video such as KeepVid or Video Download Heler (if you use Firefox).
If surfing and torrenting are slightly slower than E-Speed I would personally keep it due to the high download speeds of non-torrent files, but that is my case where I download lots of podcasts. If you use Google Maps a lot and find that download YouTube videos doesn’t help or is just too inconvenient, stick with E-Speed. Hope that helps =)
Hi there,
utorrent has no problems with the incoming/outgoing connections; only ZOOM! has that problem so I guess they may have blocked the ports on their router.
Will continue to use it for another week or so before I make the final decision. I really wish I can keep it though :)
halo…now i using zooom 3.5g modem.if i change to 3.75g modem is it faster surfing n downloading????or is the same as usual.
@ahjohnlah 3.5G typically goes up to 7.2Mbps (7.2Mbps is the maximum advertised bandwidth so anything faster on the modem side probably won’t help anyway) and 3.75G seems to be focused on upload rather than download, so I would say no.
My Experience with Zooom! is that it depends on where you stay. As for myself, I tested it in sungai liang, no matter how i tweaked it, my speed can reach maximum 1mbps which is way below the subscribe 3.5speed.
When i tested the same modem in Kuala Belait, the speed can reach 200kbps like how eric has tested it.
If you have problem on torrenting with Zoom!, it is most probably due to the incoming port issue. However, in Zoom! there is no way you can port forward for your torrent port, since i think bmobile basically block it anyway.
No doubt, you can try to open port with your firewall, just to be in the same side that sometime my bmobile port is open, and sometime it’s closed….
Yea I agree with Patrick; location is the main issue here. At my office in KB, I can get very good speeds almost all day round without any disconnections.
However, when I get back to my place at Panaga, eventhough the speeds are okay, I’d get ‘disconnected’ after between 30-60mins of downloads. The modem would state that it’s still connected though, but there’s no packets going in or out, so basically the line is dead. Only way to reconnect is to unplug and reconnect the modem physically. It’s a real hassle having to do that every 30-60mins.
Called 177 and the technician told me that the Panaga area is very congested and from what I can see, it would take a long time before they can resolve the issue as they have not set up any extra transmission towers to date.
To sum up, I would keep the ZOOM! if:
1. I stayed in KB…or
2. The connection would stay connected at Panaga.
I called up 177 and query about the tower in Sungai Liang since i have issued lately with espeed and bmobile which the speed reach maximum of 200kbps only since 9 of march.
Strangely, the staff told me the tower here is only capable of 3.5mbps however i insist explained that it never pass 1mbps for the last few years. The explanation is again, it’s shared among all other user.
@eric,
I do have that problem on random disconnect few years ago, but it seems resolve for me. Recently i install windows 7 and it’s seem the bmobile never disconnected.
Patrick,
I guess they cannot afford to have 100% 3.5G coverage for all parts of Brunei, so maybe some areas like Sg. Liang may only be limited to 3G speeds.
In the past two months of testing the ZOOM! the best I’ve got is about 500KB/s (3.9Mb/s) but its very rare to attain this speed. The advertised ‘up to 7.2Mbps’ is really just a marketing gimmick.
I haven’t had the chance to try out Win7 with ZOOM! yet but I doubt that it’s due to the OS. I’ve tried it on 1 desktop and 2 laptops running on XP and all exhibit the same problem (i.e. loss of connectivity after a while).
hi thewheat,
is it any chance to running own server with Bmobile broadband, so far i cant access my site, even change from port 80 to 8000(router port forward). seem no ports can be used. well im using E220 Huawei broadband + Vigsys VD30 router + Bmobile broadband..do you have any solutions.
Pinging http://www.darkcode31337.co.cc [202.93.215.91] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 202.93.215.91:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
here is netstat
C:\Users\Darkcode31337>netstat -ano
Active Connections
Proto Local Address Foreign Address State PID
TCP 0.0.0.0:21 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 1384
TCP 0.0.0.0:25 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 1748
TCP 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 3732
TCP 0.0.0.0:110 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 1748
TCP 0.0.0.0:135 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 740
TCP 0.0.0.0:143 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 1748
TCP 0.0.0.0:445 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 4
TCP 0.0.0.0:3306 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 216
TCP 0.0.0.0:5357 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 4
TCP 0.0.0.0:49152 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 444
TCP 0.0.0.0:49153 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 836
TCP 0.0.0.0:49154 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 904
TCP 0.0.0.0:49155 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 548
TCP 0.0.0.0:49156 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 540
TCP 0.0.0.0:49157 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 2076
TCP 127.0.0.1:14147 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 1384
TCP 127.0.0.1:14147 127.0.0.1:49158 ESTABLISHED 1384
TCP 127.0.0.1:49158 127.0.0.1:14147 ESTABLISHED 2272
TCP 127.0.0.1:59359 127.0.0.1:59360 ESTABLISHED 3884
TCP 127.0.0.1:59360 127.0.0.1:59359 ESTABLISHED 3884
TCP 127.0.0.1:59361 127.0.0.1:59362 ESTABLISHED 3884
TCP 127.0.0.1:59362 127.0.0.1:59361 ESTABLISHED 3884
TCP 192.168.2.149:139 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 4
TCP 192.168.2.149:60670 70.38.38.234:80 ESTABLISHED 3884
TCP 192.168.2.149:60758 64.4.44.35:80 ESTABLISHED 3884
TCP 192.168.2.149:60780 69.28.158.131:27038 TIME_WAIT 0
TCP 192.168.2.149:60782 69.63.189.11:80 ESTABLISHED 3884
TCP 192.168.2.149:60785 69.63.180.45:80 ESTABLISHED 3884
TCP 192.168.2.149:60786 69.28.153.82:27038 TIME_WAIT 0
TCP 192.168.2.149:60788 203.66.135.193:27030 ESTABLISHED 1876
TCP [::]:135 [::]:0 LISTENING 740
TCP [::]:445 [::]:0 LISTENING 4
TCP [::]:5357 [::]:0 LISTENING 4
TCP [::]:49152 [::]:0 LISTENING 444
TCP [::]:49153 [::]:0 LISTENING 836
TCP [::]:49154 [::]:0 LISTENING 904
TCP [::]:49155 [::]:0 LISTENING 548
TCP [::]:49156 [::]:0 LISTENING 540
TCP [::]:49157 [::]:0 LISTENING 2076
UDP 0.0.0.0:500 *:* 904
UDP 0.0.0.0:3702 *:* 2964
UDP 0.0.0.0:3702 *:* 2964
UDP 0.0.0.0:4500 *:* 904
UDP 0.0.0.0:5355 *:* 900
UDP 0.0.0.0:63946 *:* 2964
UDP 127.0.0.1:1900 *:* 2964
UDP 127.0.0.1:62018 *:* 2964
UDP 192.168.2.149:137 *:* 4
UDP 192.168.2.149:138 *:* 4
UDP 192.168.2.149:1900 *:* 2964
UDP 192.168.2.149:62017 *:* 2964
UDP [::]:500 *:* 904
UDP [::]:3702 *:* 2964
UDP [::]:3702 *:* 2964
UDP [::]:4500 *:* 904
UDP [::]:5355 *:* 900
UDP [::]:63947 *:* 2964
UDP [::1]:1900 *:* 2964
UDP [::1]:62016 *:* 2964
UDP [fe80::90d5:c7c1:5be7:c905%11]:1900 *:*
2964
UDP [fe80::90d5:c7c1:5be7:c905%11]:62015 *:*
2964
if u have any solutions about that plz sent me an email plz…
where can i get a bmobile software for my pc? I lost my cd :c