Computer Wizzard: Indosat IM2 Blitz - Broadband Internet Via Satelite

Good news for people who is in demand of good internet connection. After several moments being served exclusively by Speedy (I mean, the cheap but fast internet access). Now we have other option to choose.

Honestly speedy is well-known for its speed. Not only its fastness, sometimes (or many times), it's very famous by its turtle-speed access. And more over, sometimes Speedy (with no reason) is down with nothing we can do about it.

Once when my Speedy access is down, I tried to call the Customer Service; with a warm words they asked me about my speedy number. And then, nicely, they said, "Let us check the problem first to make sure about what is going on at your place". I was so happy back then.

But then, after she hung-up the phone. I realize. Hey, why they didn't ask for my name, my contact number, or else? Then how would I know the progress of their repairment ? Dooh! One thing left in my head is a good-thought, I believe they already know my name, my contact, or anything thru my speedy customer number.

IM2 Satelite Dish (Sorry, my thumb's showed in the picture :p )

And I was wrong. They never update about the troubles. So they left me disconnected for several hours, several days. And few days later after the connection is finally back to live, I visit the telkom website, I was trying to complaint about their service thru their website. I can't wait to see their excuses. Hours of waiting, days of waiting, even until months of waiting; finally they responds for my complaint. Well, it's too late, I even forgot about the problem! Hahaha.

Well, for a poor user like me who could only afford a cheap connection; the speed like a flash will be just in our imagination (I thought).

Back to Indosat.

They offer me a satelite connection (KU-Band) for my ofice. The monthly cost is quite cheap, only IDR 800,000 per month (if I bought the dish - the price is around IDR 20,000,000), or pay IDR 1,700,000 per month (if I only want to rent the dish). Well, it's quite affordable.

On that amount of money, they give me the connection up-to 512 Kbps. With 4 IP Address (1 Effective IP - others are used by the satelite router).

Well, why not.

So, I installed this dish at my office. And I found that this connection is quite good. They never been down for 2 months (until now). But of course there are some difference between speedy and Indosat Blitz.

For speedy, their ping response is very fast some times could reach the DNS below 20 ms, but for Blitz, it needs at least 400-500ms. This kind of delay will be a problem for a user who use their internet connection for VOIP (Internet Telephony); it may cause a delay in the conversation. And also this long ping-reply will also cause a delay on accessing a website those have several hops until reaching them. So, when you do browsing; you will find a bit slower than speedy (if this speedy is running normally)

And then, what is the good point of using this IM2 Blitz? First, they're not easily disconnected. They only be a bit slower when there are a bad weather (a very bad one); but this kind of things are very rare; especially in Surabaya. Second, even though their ping-reply is much slower than speedy, but it doesn't effect the downloading speed. Using speedy, I could only reach around 30 KB/s, but with IM2 Blitz, I could get around 50-60 KB/s. Quite amazing! Third, there are no place limitation, no matter where you are (as long as you can reach Palapa Satelite), you will be able to be served by this Blitz.

After several months using IM2 Blitz; I think, it's not that bad to use a satelite connection anyway (of course until there are any other cheap-but-fast connection available - again, hahaha).