Today is the last day of 2022. Internet connection is already close being a public utility. And here I am, having a hard time trying to find decent ISP that can provides service to my place.
I’ve been trying to change providers since at least 4 months ago. And this effort will probably continue to 2023.
Provider Checklist
I’m looking at these things while looking for ISP:
- Available at my place (duh)
- Sane pricing, I’m not going to pay for enterprise pricing
- No scummy practice (ok, maybe at least minimal, none at all is unlikely to exists)
- Use fiber connection or better
- No weird quota or policy on rate limiting
- Good uptime (it’s 2022, please don’t timeout when it’s raining)
And these are nice to have but not required:
- Internet only (no, I do not want to subscribe to your whatever TV/CCTV/streaming services)
- Bring-my-own-modem or at least don’t charge me with overpriced modem rent per month to the point I can buy the modem 4 times a year
- IPv6 support (is this even a thing in Indonesia?)
Here I go, checking every single ISP that provides fiber connection and operates in Indonesia. Like every single one of them, from “every person know this name” to “is that an actual service name?”.
Is it available in my place?
*: Not going to bother with ISP targeting enterprise user.
**: MNC Play requires me to fill a form with personal identification etc. to check for coverage area. I already did that with another ISP, got a lot of spam calls and no coverage, no thanks.
ISP availability last checked at: 2022-12-31
2023-04-26 - Escape from Jakarta
I probably won’t be updating this page anymore. I’m convinced I don’t need to live in this city. There’s not much point in finding the ultimate ISP if every other aspects in life also sucks here for me. Might as well try to move to a better place.
2023-01-09 - Iconnet
First time I heard about “Iconnet” from my coworkers. Apparently it’s backed by Indo’s PLN. I checked their site, apparently my place is covered. But, it’s not great according to my source 🫠.
What makes this ISP even funnier is that their own landing page have an empty testimony section.
2022-12-31 - First Media
I already used First Media from the time they start showing up in my area (probably around ~2013). At that time, they provide real fast connection. But over the time, their price keeps climbing while the stability spirals downhill. People I know have been saying this is because they keep adding more customers to existing terminals regardless of the terminal capacity instead of adding more terminals 😕.
Fast forward 10 years later, after asking around, they still have the same issues. Ignoring the ridiculous amount of spam from their marketing, I hate the fact that their prices varies based on how much pressure you put into their customer support or sales. The more you complaint and want to cut their connection, the more discount you get 🤨. Not being transparent with the pricing model is a bad enough sign for me to stay away.
2022-11-27 - Oxygen.id
A promising ISP, if I could actually use it.
2022-10-01, late night: I applied via their online registration.
Same day, 9 p.m.: Contacted by their sales via WhatsApp, asking for location coordinates etc.
2022-10-03: Registration and payment completed, waiting for their technician now.
2022-10-04: Their technician came while it’s raining heavily. Technician said all nearby terminals are full. Need to request validation team and see whether they can free up some unused terminal slots.
2022-10-10: Call from their sales, validation in progress.
2022-10-18: Another call from their sales, validation still in progress and might take even more time. They’re asking to refund my money for now.
2022-11-27: I asked the same sales for updates on the validation. No reply.
Later on their sales did “react” to my messages though: Truly a 😂 moment.
Now, I have no idea whether that person just quit from being a sales or it’s their official response. There’s still some hope from this ISP if I tried to contact them again. But not now, right now I don’t have the patience to sit out months just for them to check whether they have available slots for me or not.
Bonus: I can’t login to my customer account after changing the default password to a 25-characters password. Pressing login does nothing, no message or UI feedback whatsoever. I suspect my password is over the length limit they have for password 🙃.
Changelog
- 2023-12-03: Found Bnetfit and Fiberstream in some random FB group when trying to troubleshoot dumb NAT issues with Nintendo Switch
Post 12 of #100DaysToOffload.