Hello,

I'm new to Lamma and to this forum.

I recently moved in Ko Long Village and I am looking for the internet plans proposed by the different providers.

After reading the discussions on this forum, I checked out PCCW/Netvigator, HGC/3 and PACNET.

For example, this is what I got at PCCW:
218 HKD / month for a 3 Mb plan + 13 HKD / month (WiFi), 24 month contract.
No Now TV ("not available in this area").

I am wondering if this is the standard price in Lamma. I've seen cheaper offers being discussed in the forum, but I can't find them online.

I am looking for a 'not too slow' connection, with WiFi in my apartment + possibly hotspot access elsewhere in HK.
Also, one concern is that everyone seems to be offering only 24 month (or longer) contracts, with no way of cancelling them without paying for the whole 24 month fees. I would like to get shorter contracts (or contracts coming with a reasonable cancellation fee) since I would like to be free to cancel my contract if I don't like it / move out.

Any feedback about this ?
Thank you

Thank you for the replies.

So I settled for the 'standard' offer:
18-month contract
218$ / month for 3 MB service
+13$ for WiFi service
+48$ (per device) for free access to hotspots in HK

I am concerned by a couple of things:

- According to the PCCW guy, if I pay by cash I need to make a 800$ prepayment

- installation is free of charge, so is contract cancellation after the 18 months. Relocating within 18 months is free, but after that it costs 300$ ? I don't get the logic. (PCCW guy couldn't undertand when I asked him)

I guess I could find something better, but let's just try this one for a start. Anyway that's still cheaper than what I was paying in Japan & France. So we'll see.

Joji

So, all the other service providers have chosen to stop taking in new residential customers and PCCW really are the only company offering landline broadband on Lamma?

For some strange reason I can't see there being any more "special offers" under the current state of affairs.

But aren't many people here still using providers other than PCCW? I wonder what those other companies gain by refusing to sign up new customers since it basically only involves the same old procedure of having the PCCW tech set up the 'modem' and watching automatic monthly billing do the rest??

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"Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat!"

That's a seriously sweet deal, Alan! Just not sweet for you...

I just heard about similar "offer you can't refuse", except even worse: well over $250 a month with full 30 months lock-in.

One friendly salesdroid from a competing firm claimed they'd love to sign me up, but PCCW is no longer willing to share their pipes under new deals. Well, this despite us having everything already set up at our end with just the provider changing.

Of course this stinks, <cough, cough> but we're just expected to suck it up. Besides, Richie Li really needs our cash...

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"Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat!"

This topic is becoming more of an issue than the cycle parking at the pier!!

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Sabe 1

Alan, that was New World Telecom.

Apparently to qualify for their residential broadband these days the location must support "NWT self block wiring". Why that has become a requirement beats me. For whatever reason PCCW isn't flipping their switches on NWT's behalf any longer.

Netfront does sound interesting under the circumstances. Best of all, they're not PCCW (or are they?? ) and secondly a contract with 6-months of chain-and-ball and inst. fee waived sounds comparatively reasonable today.

Surely that $248/month is for a 1000M (1Gbps) connection, like the $199 deals just across the East Lamma Channel?

Seriously though, 1.8M, 3.0M or 6.0M?

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"Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat!"

$248 is their 1.8 M. $268 for 3.8 M. Paying for 6M on Lamma is just pissing money away. I'll go for the cheaper option, they say I can upgrade later, but I doubt it would make any practical difference here. I only absolutely need reliable email, and access to information like Wikipedia, the rest is dispensible.

I don't think that it's actually PCCW that's blocking the other ISPs, that would be pretty illegal, more that all the ISPs are going for fibre and 4G, and the little pockets of HK like Lamma that are stuck with DSL broadband aren't worth the hassle.

But PCCW is certainly taking full advantage and putting our balls in a vice to maximise their return now there is almost no alternative. The salesmen were very cheerful when I told them I was on Lamma, they knew they didn't need to give me any concessions. I wonder if they'll screw existing subscribers when their contracts are up.

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"Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat!"

The high speed cable seems to be running now - at least for TV. The hair dresser is getting the new TV service. He said he paid just over 2k for the box up front and then pays 800 a year after that. It has loads of channels that come through crystal clear and has about 2,500 movies that you can instantly download and watch, with the ability to pause, fast forward and rewind at will. Don't know if the net is running or not but you would think so. The 21st century has finally arrived on Lamma. Well... in terms of technology at least.

Please tell us more!!!

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Sabe 1

I did a bit of enquiry into this. My local TV satellite expert told me this:

This is using the IPTV box from China. The IPTV box costs about $2,500-3,000 and is only 1280x720p, unlike cheaper satellite HD TV boxes at 1920x1080i.

It's got 200 channels but needs the full maximum 3-6Mb speed of your PCCW Broadband line. So you need to test your line speed first as it usually slows down dramatically in the evening and at night, right when you might want to watch TV. During the daytime, it might be OK as we've recently been getting about 5Mb sustained downloading speed during daytime. But how long this OK speed is going to last is anyone's guess.

But while this IPTV box is running you can hardly use Internet at the same time at all as there's no bandwidth left. Many people have used it already and complained about this, so my satellite TV guy is not recommending it and is not selling and installing it on Lamma.

IF you're OK with not using the Internet at the same time as watching TV, like the hairdresser, and
IF you are willing to pay $3,000+ for the setup, and
IF you're prepared that it all will only work for a few months before going offline completely (like all the other China-based TV options I've tried over the years),
then this might be an OK-for-now and quite low-cost solution, cheaper than any satellite TV option for now.

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Most set top boxes seem to be able to record to a hard disk. So you could set it to record programs in the daytime and watch them at night. But you could just torrent files for free and watch them later if that's what you want.

A bunch of people using these and we'd end up with dead slow Internet for everyone all day. every day.

I can't even listen to internet radio streams in the evening, 48kbps AAC without it dropping out all the time.

There are software (Chinese) streaming TV solutions, eg PPStream. Don't know what resolution it offers though.