While window shopping on Merdeka eve night, I chanced upon a Maxis broadband promotion and couldn’t resist subscribing to a package. I do have Celcom 3G internet and DiGi also as backups for my Streamyx but I am looking for ways to lower my overhead costs.

Maxis seems to offer a better deal compared to Celcom and in addition to a Merdeka (Independence Day) offer, even a stingy me signed up for a package. To sign up, I had to pay MYR100. I was given a “notebook”. No, not laptop, but a paper notebook. LOL This is the reason I never refer to a laptop as notebook!

When I came home and called Customer Service to make some enquiries regarding the Maxis Broadband that I subscribed to, I was told that I am not advised to access the internet from my mobile phone because I may incur GPRS charges which is separate from the Maxis broadband that I subscribed to. This essential mean that I may have to pay more in addition to the plan that I will be paying.

Now, this doesn’t sound right. It makes Celcom Broadband Advance sound cheap! I asked the promoter to find out for me about additional charges if I were to access the internet from my mobile phone and she, after calling Maxis Customer Service, gave me the same reply. She was rather apologetic about it.

So I went to Maxis Centre in Ipoh this afternoon to make sure for the third time if what I was made to understand was actually true. I figured that if it’s true then I would cancel my subscription and get a refund on the MYR100 that I paid, since I have one week free trial to try out the service. I have no issues with the service or the bandwidth (yet) but I definitely do not fancy receiving a monstrous bill at the end of the month.

According to the staff at Maxis Centre, there is no additional charge from the plan that I am subscribed to. I am going to make a note here and take it up to them if there are charges outside of my plan when the bill arrives. Good luck to me!

No, I did not conveniently forget to blog these past 1.5 months. My blogs are always at the back of my mind even when I am busy chasing Beyond the Realm of Conscience, the latest TVB drama that stars Kevin Cheng, but for the past six months, Snoopy has been terribly ill, I am terribly ill from taking care of him and I am sure you are getting nauseous just reading about it.

Anyway, a couple of days ago, I received this temptation from Maybank and Maxis. These two companies have collaborated to entice me with a hard to resist exclusive offer of an iPhone 3GS. The first thousand Maybankard holders who take up this offer will get to save at least RM250 signing up for any Maxis iValue package.

As a 2G iPhone user, I am just waiting for an opportunity to upgrade my iPhone but seriously, an iPhone 3GS is luxury and I cannot justify splurging so much on a device and rewarding myself when I haven’t been working hard for the past six months, if I worked at all!

One thing that’s stopping me from signing up with Maxis on this iPhone 3GS promotion is the inability to port my Celcom number. I understand that I would need a new number that carries a prefix of 012; probably due to branding. At the same time, I do not wish to have two mobile lines. One is sufficient.

Another issue I have with Maxis iValue 1 is that I would only get 500MB of data for free per month. I don’t know how much that is but that definitely isn’t enough if Streamyx goes down. I’m not prepared to get a surprise when the bill comes at the end of the month. Sigh… I guess I am going to give this a pass, unless someone pays for the iPhone 3GS. My birthday’s coming up, you know? *ahem*