Tag: dst

Brunei Telco Wars 2022

September 1st brought a UNN upgrade and now our telcos DST, Imagine and Progresif have updated their home broadband plans. Below is a summary of the changes for each telco and the latest plans

Pick My Provider https://bruneigeekmeet.com/pmp updated to help pick which provider could suit your needs (view old plans here)

Summary

DST

  • Straightforward upgrade: same price but with either more data (100GB) or faster speed
  • Good
    • Webpage seems to have all necessary information
    • Simple 5 price points and decide if you want more data / more speed
  • Bad
    • 2 year contract
    • No Nationwide WiFi
  • Ugly
    • No real “Unlimited” plan as all plans are throttled after a certain data usage
    • Extra data only being 100GB feels small and doesn’t feel like it differentiates enough between
    • Message is confusing
      • saying all plans have 100Mbps but there are plans with less than that
      • most plan details show a breakdown based on 100Mbps then “Other plans” then “Unlimited” instead of showing the 5 price points

Imagine

  • Upgrades in general get extra data and extra speed benefits
  • Good
    • Actual unlimited plans
    • Nationwide WiFi and explicitly mentioning multiple device support
  • Bad
    • 1 or 2 year contract
    • Unclear throttling info for data based plans (should be same as previous of limited to 1Mbps)
  • Ugly
    • Dowgranding plans once contract runs out and not directly mentioned on main page
    • Online chat system is not great and got no response (previous chat system was better)

Progresif

  • Consolidated plans typically with more data / speed at same price
  • Good
    • No contract needed
    • Actual unlimited plans
    • Nationwide WiFi access
    • Has 100GB for $10 data add-on with long 60 days validity
  • Bad
    • Some lower plans now pay more
    • Unclear throttling behaviour for data based plans (had to ask them as not on website)
      • no Internet for “Entry-Level” plans
      • limited to 512kbps/1Mbps for the rest (was told 2 different values from 2 different sources)
    • $10 line fee now for all plans
    • Online chat system is not great and got no response from multiple messages sent
  • Ugly
    • Now with excluding $10 line fee
      • Feels like they are the same as competition and lost an edge
      • Adds confusion for previous customers where it was previously included in the plan
      • So it is less “Simple keeping”(one of their advertised phrases in the past)

Details

DST

  • Comparing to previous plans
    • In general same price but with either more data (100GB) or faster speed (so you only get 1 benefit)
    • Exception: Infinity 38 will get faster speeds when choosing more data (previously 20Mbps now 50Mbps)
  • 5 price points and each has an option for supersize (more data) / superspeed (faster)
    • I did not understand this until I saw the following sign at a store

Imagine

  • Comparing to existing plans
    • Upgrade gives 100GB more with faster speeds at same price
    • Exception: 1.6TB data plans quota has no data change but $4/month cheaper
  • When plans are out of contract you get less data / slower speed
    • Based on their Instagram post as could not find an info on their website
      • 800GB quota and lower: less data
      • 1.6TB data: less speed (100Mbps -> 50Mbps, 200Mbps -> 100Mbps) and $4/month extra
      • Unlimited data: plans less speed (100Mbps -> 50Mbps, 200Mbps -> 100Mbps)
      • To keep 200Mbps extra $200/month
    • There is mention of less data in Broadband FAQ but no details
      > WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF MY CONTRACT PERIOD ENDS?
      > You will automatically be moved to a no contract plan, but with less data. There will be no changes to your monthly rental. To continue enjoying more data, simply renew your contract to 12 or 24 months.
      > HOW LONG CAN I STAY UNDER A NO CONTRACT PLAN?
      > You can stay for as long as you wish. However, you will enjoy more benefits i.e. more data or savings when you renew your contract.
  • Nationwide WiFi available
  • Has real unlimited connection
  • Data based plans should throttle on exceeding data
    • No mention in website, had to ask in person and they did not know the speed
    • Likely 1Mbps as was previously
  • 1 or 2 year contract
  • Online communications not so great
    • Thier ima chat system has had a downgrade since the last time I used it
      • Says “Type a message” but you have to click buttons as they have disabled actual chat?
      • Personal identifiable information is sent in the clear in the address bar
      • Never got a response
    • Instagram direct message reply took 23 hours

Progresif

  • Consolidating multiple plans to single new plan
  • Comparing to previous plans
    • In general twice speed and slightly cheaper
    • Lower tier previous plans now pay more
      • Previously: One Home 50GB @ 20Mbps for $30 / One Home 250GB @ 20Mbps for $38
      • Now: Fibre 125GB @ 50Mbps for $35 / Fibre 250GB @ 50Mbps for $45 (Data add on 100GB for $10 valid for 60 days)
  • Now all prices **exclude** $10 line cost
  • No contract required
  • Nationwide WiFi available
    • Was told in store that it is only for a single device and multiple devices can be registered but needs to be done in store
  • Online communications not so great
    • Thier “Ask Tia” chat system has never given me a response
    • Prior to this recent upgrade it just said “Message sent” so I presumed it was an email and I would get a reply. Never received one
    • This time around it loads a chat interface but still I never got a respons
    • Instagram direct message reply took 31 hours

Pick My Provider

Ever since we got the revamp internet plans from DST, Imagine and Progresif (which I call the #BruneiTelcoWars) thanks to the work of UNN there have been several comparisons around and now is my turn with Pick My Provider https://bruneigeekmeet.com/pmp


Features

  • Find top 6 cheapest plans based on expected data usage
  • Shows top 3 cheapest per provider
  • Supports some filtering (e.g. minimum speed / contract)
  • Search Home Broadband (i.e. fibre), Mobile and Mobile Pay-As-You-Go
  • Displays information in tables for quick scanning of information
  • Plans are linked to source telco for more details
  • Copy link to current search to share with others

Most things are there and one current known issue is that Mobile Pay-As-You-Go search does not currently look at the number of days the data is valid: so a search for 1GB can show an addon that is only valid for 1 day. Hope to fix this one day down the road

“Intro to Dart” @ Dart Flight School, Brunei 2014

On the 15th of February the Google Developer Group (GDG) Brunei held a Dart Flight School at DST’s Signature Store.

Dart is a new language that learns from Javascript and adds features that are missing in Javascript such as classes and optional static typing. It aims to provide a better developer workflow and efficiency, better performance vs Javascript and can compile to Javascript in order to be deployed anywhere.

I prerecorded an “Intro to Dart” video just in case as with all things, technology can be troublesome at times =)  There is also a 4 hour long Hangouts on Air recording of the entire event

Intro to Dart slide deck

Dart Flight School

The code labs served as a way to learn Dart and it is even deployable on Heroku. We also covered a bit of Angular JS with a work in progress AngularJS intro project on GitHub.

All in all, Dart seems compelling that it is more performant compared to Javascript, can be compiled to Javascript so you reap the development benefit while still maintaining deployability via Javascript, having a single language for both client and server and adding ‘modern’ features added to Javascript make it easier to develop in. Certainly an alternative to Javascript+Node and perhaps something to use in a future project.

USB Modem Lock-in: The Reason to buy a 3rd party 3G USB modem

What happens when you put a DST SIM card into a b-mobiled branded TechFaith Flying Angel 46 USB 3G modem as shown below?

You get a bunch of fail as the modem is locked. This is a reason to buy a 3rd party 3G USB modem as it should support any SIM card and thus will be useful for bringing overseas as well. I contacted b-mobile who told me to contact the manufacturer. I tried to email but did not get any response from them. Perhaps it’s round 2 for trying to contact them or try to learn the inner workings for locking and unlocking modems.

DST APN for Android: Set your Internet and MMS APNs easily

Ever have trouble setting up APN settings (or just being too lazy to type in all the configurations) for your Android device, especially for MMS? The DST APN app will help you out. Just install it, click a button and your APN settings are set and you should be able to surf via the mobile network as well as receive MMS’s.

Download links:

  • DST APN on the Android Market (web version for computers) (seems WordPress.com won’t let me put a link to the Android Market app link for Android devices, so you’re going to have to use this or just search the Market manually)
  • Direct APK download

Brunei’s Mobile Network Code

This stems from a comment by faye. Seems that the phone usually detects the values from the SIM card as my Android phone auto populates the MCC and MNC fields but for some non-mainstream phones these values may need to be manually entered

A Mobile Network Code (MNC) is used in combination with a Mobile Country Code (MCC) (also known as a “MCC / MNC tuple”) to uniquely identify a mobile phone operator/carrier using the GSM, CDMA, iDEN, TETRA and UMTS public land mobile networks and some satellite mobile networks. The ITU-T Recommendation E.212 defines mobile country codes.
The following tables contain the complete list of mobile phone operators. Country information is provided for completeness, though this information is best obtained from theList of mobile country codes page, where ISO 3166-1 country codes are also cross referenced.
The MNC and MCC values within the table are decimal numbers.

Source: Wikipedia

Getting Android to play nice with DST’s Internet and MMS APNs (and bmobile too)

It all started off with a tweet from @marul69:

@thewheat do you have DST mms settings working for Android OS?

and so begun the quest to get MMS settings working on Android. Several months ago I tried configuring it on my sister’s HTC Desire, but unfortunately that fight was lost many a times. But today, triumphantly and after some fussing around I managed to get it working. Finally. Settings are below

b-mobile users refer here but I can’t guarantee that it works as I’m not in Brunei and don’t have a bmobile line to test

Internet APN:

  • Name: dst.internet
  • APN: dst.internet
  • Proxy: <Not set>
  • Port: <Not set>
  • Username: <Not set>
  • Password: <Not set>
  • Server: <Not set>
  • MMSC: <Not set>
  • MMS proxy: <Not set>
  • MMS port: <Not set>
  • MCC: 528 (for other carriers this should be different. this value was automatically set by the phone)
  • MNC: 11 (for other carriers this should be different. this value was automatically set by the phone)
  • Authentication Type: <Not set>
  • APN Type: default

MMS APN:

  • Name: dst.mms
  • APN: dst.mms
  • Proxy: <Not set>
  • Port: <Not set>
  • Username: mms
  • Password: mms
  • Server: <Not set>
  • MMSC: http://mms.dst.com.bn/mmsc
  • MMS proxy: 10.100.6.101
  • MMS port: 3130
  • MCC: 528 (for other carriers this should be different. this value was automatically set by the phone)
  • MNC: 11 (for other carriers this should be different. this value was automatically set by the phone)
  • Authentication Type: <Not set>
  • APN Type: mms

If all goes well, the APN screen will be as shown below, with only the dst.internet APN being selectable with the radio button on the right. This signifies that when mobile data is enabled, it will use dst.internet for Internet access. If APN Type of “mms” is not specified, there will be a radio button next to the dst.mms configuration which needs to be selected in order to send and receive MMSs. The problem with that is, the dst.mms does not provide Internet access so you will not be able to access the Internet unless you manually select dst.internet as the APN which is very inconvenient. This led me to find out the importance of the APN Type value that was found after trying some Googling and landing on Ausdroid’s APN page. So thanks to Ausdroid and hopefully this will help all those having trouble with their Android phone and MMS.

Full screenshot reference of APN configurations:

DST Internet Settings
DST Internet Settings

DST MMS Settings
DST MMS Settings

ICS settings
Android 4.x DST Internet Settings

dstAPNICS2
Android 4.x DST MMS Settings

bmobile

I can’t guarantee these values work as I’m not in Brunei, so please test and let me know in the comments.

Internet APN:

  • Name: bmobilewap
  • APN: bmobilewap
  • Proxy: <Not set>
  • Port: <Not set>
  • Username: <Not set>
  • Password: <Not set>
  • Server: <Not set>
  • MMSC: <Not set>
  • MMS proxy: <Not set>
  • MMS port: <Not set>
  • Authentication Type: <Not set>
  • APN Type: default

MMS APN:

  • Name: bmobilemms
  • APN: bmobilemms
  • Proxy: <Not set>
  • Port: <Not set>
  • Username: mms
  • Password: mms
  • Server: <Not set>
  • MMSC: http://mms.bmobile.com.bn/was
  • MMS proxy: 129.9.10.20
  • MMS port: 6500
  • Authentication Type: <Not set>
  • APN Type: mms

EasiDial for DST Easi Card Users

So yesterday I decided to do some Android development. I wanted to learn the basics of creating and app to be used for the SMARTER app that will be developed shortly. This idea for the app has been in my mind for quite a while and was spurred on when my brother who went on holiday outside Brunei asked me how to make phone calls using Easi when roaming. I knew that you couldn’t just do a normal call but had to dial a special USSD code to dial (the code being *101*Mobile Number#). Now, it’s not a hard thing to do, to jot the short code down but having a dedicated app lets you have some piece of mind knowing that it has what you need to make the call.

It’s not much: basically all that it is, is a graphical representation of all the *100# code functionality. Note that this is a beta application so there may be some issues. I have yet to try “1. Call Back”, “3. Recharge”, “5. Credit Transfer” and “7. Top up any Easi” but will try do so, in the next coming days to make sure they work. You can downoad the apk file here or get it on the Android Market (computer link)

DST and bmobile’s Revised Mobile Plans

Posting this up because I couldn’t find the DST revised plans on their website. All I can say is that this is what competition is all about: in the end the customers win. Now lets just hope Telbru gets competition for eSpeed

DST Revised Prima Plans

$35
Essential Voice Plan		 $55
Extra Voice Plan		 $55
Extra Text Plan		 $85
Executive Voice Plan		 $85
Executive Text Plan		 $165
Elite Voice Plan
Free Voice (minutes) 300 2000 500 4000 2000 Unlimited
Free SMS 100 200 600 400 1200 Unlimited
Free MMS 20 55 55 85 85 Unlimited
Free Data 1.5GB 5GB 5GB 10GB 10GB 20GB

Source: Brunei Times E-Paper (view newspaper promo advert)

For good measure I’ve throw in bmobile‘s revised rates too

Bmobile’s Revised Plans

Smart $35 Smart $45 Smart $55 Smart $65
Free Voice (minutes) 300 500 1000 1200
Free SMS 100 200 300 500
Free MMS 20 30 40 40
Free Data 1.5GB 3GB 10GB Unlimited

Source: bmobile website (view screenshot)