On Tuesday, the Ministry ordered the ISPs to cut prices by at least 40 percent, slashing the price of an annual subscription for a 1 megabyte per second (mbp) connection to 48 Kuwaiti dinars ($170), while 8 mbps will now cost 200 dinars.
That means Kuwait is considerably cheaper than other Gulf countries; in Bahrain, for example, Batelco charges 120 dinars ($320) annually for a 1 mbp line and 360 dinars for 8 mbps.But that will do little to improve fixed broadband take-up, said Qualitynet’s Kooheji, with Kuwait’s penetration of about 5.5 percent half that of the United Arab Emirates.
“We receive lots of calls from customers who want to upgrade and take the maximum speed for the price available, but they cannot do so,” said Kooheji. “The government should put more effort into improving the telecom infrastructure rather than cutting prices.”
…
Kooheji said only about 15 percent of fixed broadband connections in the country used fibre, with the remainder on copper lines.
If it wasn’t for WiMD I’d still be stuck on a 2Mbps DSL connection with a 256kb uplink. Yet I’d still be one of the lucky ones since at least I have a phone line. Check out the news article on [Yahoo]
25 replies on “Qualitynet GM Speaks Out”
Do you have the price range and speeds for WiMD. I also can’t go over 1mb in my area :'( but I am using mada.
These are their prices when I signed up. I went with 10Mbps. (Prices are per year)
1Mb KD130
1.5Mb KD150
2Mb KD180
3Mb KD225
4Mb KD270
5Mb KD320
6Mb KD325
7Mb KD355
8Mb KD390
9Mb KD473
10Mb KD523
11Mb KD590
12Mb KD660
13Mb KD730
14Mb KD800
15Mb KD870
16Mb KD940
17Mb KD1,010
18Mb KD1,080
19Mb KD1,150
20Mb KD1,220
I’ve heard they now offer speeds from 6 and up only.
27kd a month for 6mb, not bad and is more than enough speed for basic gaming and youtube needs. But 1mb and 2mb for 2012 is not good.
I tried contacting WiMD regarding internet for my apartment.
3 days later they called me back to say it was possible, but they told me that I have to visit some shop called Cameo and sign the contract BEFORE the Engineer will come round to check the possibility of connection – this all seemed very suspect to me. Has anyone else been through this?
Yes, this is their normal crappy process now, this review of wimd describes it perfectly: https://quickneed.com/review/internet-provider-wimd-review/
am stuck with a 2mb DSL connection, however my issue is upload… my line does not support higher than 512k upload speeds…. and quality net’s 2mb gaming does not work…. akhhhh
Yeah, ummm…Up until two months ago, my parents paid Dhs 180 per MONTH for…512kbps DSL. That’s Dhs 2160/ KD 165 per year. FOR 512 KBPS.
Now we’re on Etisalat’s fiber-optic whatever and we’re paying Dhs 330/month for 8 Mbps (though the price also includes a landline subscription and basic cable TV).
The joys of living with a monopoly.
…aaaaaaand I just did the calculations and it turns out it’s cheaper here than in Kuwait.
Woops O:-)
The problem is as I understand it everyone is renting from one giant provider to the ME, so they basically get to set the prices until it trickles down to us 🙁
Wait! No! I was looking at the old prices! Yup, we’re more expensive.
I’ve just noticed that they’ve increased the max attainable speed on my line from 6 to 10. Don’t how realistic this is since we’re not on fiber yet.
Here’s the screenshot
https://i49.tinypic.com/2r53jo7.jpg
DSL can go up to 24mbps .. mine was 14mb before they limited it to 8mbps.
@thekuwaiti: thanks for the info. I guess I’ll be upgrading my connection.
@Malman: just log into your Qnet account. The max upload and download speeds will be displayed along with your account info.
https://www.myqstore.com/qnetstore/customer/login.aspx
Actually what you see over there is not totally correct. You have to log into your modem/router and get some info regarding the line from there (attenuation, SNR, etc..) which will give you a better estimation .
If you want to get an idea of the maximum speed you can get on your line visit this links:
https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/find_sync
and
https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/find_sync
or download the Excel sheet from the below link:
https://www.users.on.net/~richard.moulynox/whirlpool/adsl2calculatorv1.xls
I used the Excel sheet and the result was actually confirmed by my ISP.
Another way is to call the ISP and ask them to test your line.(minus 1mb from what they tell you 🙂 )
How did you check up on the max speed on your line?
see my above reply to Mathai.
You know what, Qualitynet? the prices are still too high. I hope they force you (and the rest of your friends) to drop prices even more.
Ether adapt or close shop.
what sucks is that where i live there is a limit that the internet wont go higher then 1,5MB 🙁 so seeing all these prices pisses me off lol
Hahaha…QNet screaming after years of milking the consumers pockets with hugely inflated internet fees.
At last Kuwait MOC does something good for the benefit of all.
Mark,
How much is the average download speed that you get with your connection ?
I have 6MB WiMD and it usually downloads at 700-800kbps. Good ping in games too, as long as they’re PC. For some reason PSN downloads slower but that happens worldwide, they have some really shitty servers.
I agree with both sides. Though it does seem like QNet is trying to garner sympathy by saying there should be a higher penetration of Fiber throughout the country. Regardless of their motives, I agree, countries are reaching 1Gbit and We’ve been stuck on these old 1Mb-10Mb lines. However, it’s not like Qnet actually offers consumers any speeds higher than that. Both sides need to work together to implement a new fiber infrastructure, with fair pricing.
Maybe they will if the lines support it … Think of it this way
They get the contract for renewing cables = $$$$$$$ for them or probably their friends
They charge more for higher speeds : more $$$$$$$$
the gov kicks in to reduce the prices by reducing their costs = $$$$$$$$$
We get lower prices and some what better services
currently we are in stage 3 but on old lines , the insane prices will come back when high end fiber is launched but atleastwe will have decent speeds
Im just worried that something new might pop up and ruin our stage 3 in the fiber optic period
I would like to rekindle the talk about Qualitynet. It is three days that their home internet service is slow. The pre-recorded message on the Helpdesk (!) phone line says there is a major problem with fiber optics outside Kuwait and they are trying to resolve it. Now the following questions are worth pondering:
1. What is this major problem of fiber optics that has not been reported anywhere else on the net sphere?
2. If that major problem does exist, why other ISPs do not suffer and it is only the Qualitynet which is the victim?
3. There were five such instances in 2014 and this is the first in 2015. What about consumer rights? By laying the blame on a fault outside the geographical territory, would Qualitynet be not responsible for the services within Kuwait? In other words, should Qualitynet not compensate customers by subscription extension, for example?
4. What happens if a customer needs to reach the Helpdesk (!) for a need other than “reporting the slowness in the internet connection?” In fact, the Helpdesk (!) has been downsized to a message on an answering machine.