The New Unifi Mobile Postpaid Plans from TM Sucks

Unifi Mobile announced 4 new Postpaid plans today. Below are the 4 new Unifi Mobile Postpaid plans from Telekom Malaysia (TM).

My Comment:

Here are some reasons why Unifi Mobile and its postpaid plans sucks.

1. Pricing

I honestly feel that the Unifi Mobile team have not done enough research before launching these plans.

The only plan among the 4 that looks interesting is Unifi Mobile 19. At just RM19/month, this is one of the cheapest postpaid plan in the market, with 2GB Internet. And it competes directly with prepaid plans offered by Hotlink, Xpax and U Mobile.

As for the other 3 Unifi Mobile postpaid plans, you should completely avoid it.

Here’s a simple comparison:

• U Mobile GX30 cost RM30/month, comes with Unlimited Data at 3Mbps speeds, 3GB hotspot data VS Unifi Mobile 29 with a limited 3GB internet, 50min voice, 25 sms at RM29/month.
• Unifi Mobile 39 is also not worth it with just 5GB Internet, 50min voice, 25 sms at RM39/month if its compared to Digi 38 Postpaid with 9GB Internet and Unlimited Calls to all networks at RM38/month.
• Unifi Mobile 59 comes with 10GB internet, 100 minutes of calls and 25 sms at RM59/month. In comparison, for a lower price at RM50/month, you could subscribe to Xpax XP50 Postpaid for 10GB all day Internet with Unlimited Calls or you could take up U Mobile GX50 with Unlimited Internet (up to 5Mbps speeds) and Unlimited Calls.

Perhaps TM thinks that it dominates the mobile Telco market?

2. No discount for existing Unifi customers.

TM took some effort to rebrand its products over the past year- Unifi, Unifi Broadband, Unifi Mobile, Unifi TV, wifi@unifi..etc

But all these are only on the surface.

If you are an existing Unifi fibre or broadband customer, you don’t get any discount on these 4 new Unifi Mobile postpaid plans.

Its quite clear to me that the Unifi Mobile team never collaborated internally to improve the offering of its product or cross promote other Unifi products.

3. Unifi Mobile’s LIMITED 4G LTE Coverage

This is where it gets interesting. Unifi Mobile doesn’t have a good 4G LTE coverage nationwide, in some cases, even worse than U Mobile and Yes4G.

Its even worse indoor as the Telco probably has zero or very limited number of 4G in-building coverage in shopping malls and buildings. However, Unifi Mobile customers could always roam on Celcom 3G network.

Based on data released by TowerXchange, Unifi Mobile only has 1,000 4G Telco towers across Malaysia while Telcos like Digi, Maxis and Celcom have more than 3k towers each. U Mobile also has 1,000 towers but it is leveraging on edotco towers and have been aggressive recently to improve coverage.

Apart from coverage, Unifi Mobile uses non-standard frequency bands which is not supported on a number of entry level/mid end smartphones.

4. The 4G/3G Data Allocation that don’t make sense

For most smartphones out there, you won’t be able to set it to 4G-only mode. This means that most phones out there will automatically switch to 3G when 4G network is not available.

Yet Unifi Mobile is allocating specific data allocation based on 3G and 4G. For example, on the Unifi Mobile 59 plan, users are given 9GB 4G LTE quota and just 1GB 3G quota.

This doesn’t make sense to consumers.

3G coverage is almost everywhere but you only get 1GB 3G data while more quota are allocated for Unifi Mobile 4G which has limited coverage (Note: Unifi Mobile is roaming on Celcom 3G network)

Being a Unifi Mobile customer, you have to search for a 4G LTE signal to maximize your internet quota. If you are traveling frequently within Malaysia, this is going to be a problem as you will be locked on to 3G most of the time due to Unifi Mobile’s limited 4G LTE coverage.

Also, how many of you would check if your phone is on 4G or 3G before streaming on Youtube and use other Internet app? Its not like you could lock on to the 4G network anyway (unless Unifi Mobile 4G is going to follow you everywhere).

Conclusion: There are also other reasons which i did not highlight, such as their poor customer service and their lousy social media team who are not efficient in responding to online comments/complaints.

I was told that their Unifi Mobile app was not accessible yesterday due to the 12.12 promotion. As an ISP, TM is supposedly an expert on matters related to bandwidth and servers, but in reality, their website and mobile can’t even handle high number of traffic.

For the time being, it is best to stick with your Maxis, Celcom, Digi, U Mobile or even your Yes4G plan. Unless you don’t mind paying more to Unifi Mobile and get something less in return.