ISP Change, or JANGAN PAKAI MELSA!!!

Finally, after about a week being offline, I'm back with a new ISP.

My old ISP, Melsa, did not came up to my expectation, I finally had enough of the traffic shaping and the instability of their network. Plus, you must agree to their spying on your online communications.

Here's a review of how Melsa, or Melvar Lintasnusa sucks: If you live in Bandung, and you want an unlimited broadband internet access, you have four options to your gateway to the internet. You can choose from Melsa, Centrin, Telkom or Indosat.

Here's a breakdown of their services.

	Melsa	Centrin	Indosat	Telkom
Name	Kabel Personal	KABELNET	IM2 Indosatnet	Telkom Speedy
Connection Type	ADSL/SDSL	ADSL	ADSL	ADSL
Advertised Download Speed up to	512 kbps***	256 kbps	384kbps*	384kbps
Actual download Speed	64 kbps	128 kbps	256 kbps**	384 kbps
Monthly fee (unlimited)	Rp 690.000 (SDSL) Rp 590.000 (ADSL)	Rp 499.000
Registration Fee	Rp 1.000.000 (SDSL) Rp 500.000(ADSL)	Rp. 1.000.000****	Gratis or Rp 200,000 (via partner network)	Rp 75.000
Security Deposit	Rp 500.000 (SDSL only) Refunded one month after contract termination.*****	NONE	NONE	NONE

*512kbps via IM2 PayTV, Jakarta only.
**I have yet to try this out, but it was reported at this speed.
***Their technical people admitted local (indonesia, or IIX only) speed at 384 kbps and 256 kbps for SDSL and ADSL resprectively.
****Not listed on webpage.
*****Not written in contract.

I KNOW I used melsa for more than a year, so, why am I disrecommending them when I've chosen their service in the first place? Well, when I registered with them, I was raking up to and above Rp1.000.000 in dialup internet. SO, I decided to use high speed broadband internet. But at the time, the only one with coverage in my area was Melsa. I thought, well, alright they said 512 kbps and at the price, it's quite a bargain. I registered when they were having free registration promotion so I only had to pay Rp 1.000.000 for the security deposit. The first disappointment was that they need three weeks to install the cable, and another week for Melsa technician to deliver the SDSL modem. (They didn't have ADSL at the time) Then after that, they plug in the wrong plug on their DSLAM and I had to wait another week for them to bring the modem back to me. They required a purchase of an APC protectNet which is only available from them in this demented city.

When Melsa technician setup the connection to my PC, he noted in a report the speed that I can get from that PC, which is 7.7 kB/s or 61.6 kbps with 44kB/s or 352kbps connection to melsa server. Evidence:

Not long after that I met up with a network admin of an online game center and he laughed when I told him I signed up with melsa internet. They had just terminated a contract with melsa because their network is unstable and switched to XL and Indosat.

And after that, disturbance after disturbance follows. Their network is very unstable. The connection at midnight is about 5 times faster than it is at noon due to network congestion at noon. Later I found out that if you connect via proxy, you can get faster connection at around 20-30 kB/s. Although they kept changing proxy number and settings.

So, to you all melsa user, please abuse melsa proxy and here's how you can get more bang for your wasted bucks; That is:

How to make your melsa internet connection faster:
Basically, use different proxy for every application you use.
If you use proxy3.melsa.net.id and proxy4.melsa.net.id you can achieve that speed. Sometimes, if you're lucky you can get speeds around 40 kB/s at midnight using proxy3.melsa.net.id or proxy4.melsa.net.id. With both, I can get full 768 kbps speed with a hacked modem and bittorrent. However, it will only last for a few hours at night and the speed will go down to the 10s kB/s rate. At one point, you can get more speed if you use proxy3.melsa.net.id and its IP number separately, say use proxy3.melsa.net.id in firefox, and the IP number for proxy3.melsa.net.id with bittorrent. However, you will overrun your max speed quota of 64kbps and your connection speed will suffer. That is the time it takes to connect to a server and ask for a download but you'll get "exorbetant" download speed.

The available proxies are:

1. proxy.melsa.net.id
2. proxy2.melsa.net.id
3. proxy3.melsa.net.id
4. proxy4.melsa.net.id
5. proxy5.melsa.net.id
6. proxy6.melsa.net.id

They always rotate their proxy, so keep experimenting.

The only downside is your upload port will get blocked when you use bittorrent and other user will not be able to connect to you but you can download from other people. Thus, even so you can download at speeds up to 50kB/s for a couple of hours at some nights, your seeding rate will suffer. (although, workarounds are available to solve this issue, but that's for another post.)

Every month I had to call their technical division asking for them to check the network and there'd always be problem with proxy or MAC address or whatever and the technical officer would give you improper settings because the network admin has changed something on their networks.
If you are a melsa user, notice that their speed is faster at mid month and is very slow at the end of the month until the beginning of the month.

The last straw came a few weeks ago when I was having very slow download speed. I tested downloading firefox from mozilla server and only got 0.1 kB/s speed. I called their 24 hour technical division and nobody picked up the phone for 4 hours. Later that day I called back and somebody picked up the phone and recommended a stupid solution to my problem and it was quite obviously didn't work because the problem was on their side of the network. I called back and nobody picked up the phone and so I called their customer service and a polite girl answered and told me that the entire technical service division was out. I was pissed. I terminated my contract that day. I had enough. Come to think of it I was quite patient with them, being their customer for more than a year putting up with all thier bullshit. But in the end, I needed something reliable that works.

The termination took a week of beureaucracy. They called me at least five times asking why I'm quitting melsa internet service. I told them they didn't deliver on their advertised speed and the network trouble was endless and I had hard time contacting their tech support. They wanted me to return the modem myself to sign some statements and I had to wait a month to get my security deposit back even though the contract explicitly said that I'd get my security deposit back when they got their modem. I told them they must send someone to take the SDSL modem and bring me the security deposit or I won't return the modem. Everytime they called, I told them that and their reply was always they'd consult the manager.

Today, telkom Speedy don't cost too much and it's available at my home, so, I signed up with Telkom Speedy, and currently, I can get speeds of 30-50 kB/s all day long. Depending on where I connect to, not how the ISP throttle my connection like melsa did.

To make the long story short, DO NOT get persuaded by their marketing campaign and discount. Melsa is the largest hotspot provider in Bandung, but even that is changing because telkom speedy hot spot is much cheaper (750.000 per mo. compared to around Rp4.000.000 at melsa) for the hotspot provider (be it, a cafe, a mall or a starbucks) to maintain. At this writing, melsa has just lost two hotspots at Bandung airport and D'Palm.

The only thing about telkom speedy is that you provide your own ADSL modem, and some non technical people buy cheap modems at regular modem prices and their connection suffer because of it. So, if you're using telkom speedy, and there's nothing telkom can do to fix your connection, make sure you use a good modem, like linksys (the one I'm using), SMC, belkin, Siemens or at least D-Link.

Another thing, if you'd care to read Melsa's Acceptable Use Policy, it's available online, but for some reason, I can't connect to open it. Anyway, in the AUP, you must agree to allow them to log anything use your internet traffic at their discretion, and you are not allowed to breate any bad thing about them and their employee. They can also cut connection to newsgroups (usenet) at their discretion. And they monitor internet messenger service traffic (like Yahoo Messenger or MSN messenger) at random and at their discretion, can block any communication using those protocols. Of course, your emails are monitored too.
Which I think violates some human and privacy rights. Which telkom does not claim to do, although, they will bow to the will of the police. Like all cowards terrorrized by the law.

Melsa AUP via the wayback machine: [link] It's significantly shorter than the printed matter: