Unlike Anthony, I am concerned with the cost.
I recently bought a laptop and therefore wanted to be able to use the internet at home, so I did some research. As I say I was budget conscious so after comparing 7 or 8 of the major providers cost wise (any connection type: Cable, Wifi,, 3G) I narrowed down my search and looked at Digi who have done a lot of pamphleteering, and at Ezecom as they are a big ISP and have various price plans...at my budget level, they both turned out to be exactly the same cost and speed/limit on a fibre optic internet connection either unlimited download at 256kbps on-peak speed/512kbps off-peak speed at USD 39 or limited traffic (up and down) of 15GB at 1024Kbps at $35 a month.

However I have gone with Metfone and it has proved an excellent high-speed 3G connection..I'm on the LT-20 plan....12GB traffic at 3G speed for $20...it's valid for a month from the date of deposit, but if you use up the 12GB before that you can just scratch a phone card and top up for another month starting from the date you top-up.

Just downloaded a 30 minute (238000 KB) US TV series (from eztv.it...thanks for that Anthony!) on u-torrent in about 15 minutes at an average of 400kb a sec (but the download speed goes up and down between 200 and 500kb a sec depending on the number of peers)

I have been using the internet a lot for work (whilst downloads take place in hte background) from the early morning to late at night with no downtime at all all at very good speed.

I recommend them....But FYI, and maybe worth a months wait?, The smart 4G wimax dongle? http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011012746398/Business/smart-set-...

ahhhh CCCambodia, I am "not overly concerned" with costs. I would be happy to pay a few dollars more for a decent connection.

I am looking for a provider that does NOT have a undetermined fair user policy that is very vague and at the same time advertises a service as unlimited. I will most likely throw a few more dollars into the dongle to keep me online and head off to the Smart office tomorrow to find out how it looks.

Stay tuned.

The Cambodian Internet is overpriced and crap compared to even Internet I experienced in Africa.

I was sort of happy with Metfone until they started moronically blocking the entire blogspot.com domain. All the other ISP's have unblocked it now (as far as I know). I am thinking about Hello since they appear to not be blocking.

http://sokheounpang.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/sieng-sithy-the-cpp-dog-and...

The dishonesty from Paul Blanche-Horgan of Ezecom is amazing. Does he think Western readers of the Phnom Penh Post are computer illiterates. There was no technical problem. Ezecom staff were blocking the domain. Ezecom have a good service reputation but I won't consider them any longer.

[Quote]
"Paul Blanche-Horgan, CEO of Ezecom, said today he had not seen the Ministry’s email.

He said the reported blockage was still a technical problem, as he has said previously, but didn’t know when it would be fixed.

“It’s still the same answer,” he said."

Anthony glad you appreciate the Smart 4G link and my assessment of Metfone 3G, no thanks required mate...won't bother posting again if my clearly lower-class user status demeans your website?

So far in Cambodia over a four year period I have used online, Camshin?, EzeCON, and now Metfone. Metfone is the only 3G system I have used and so far its the best ISP connection I have ever had. The cost is not the most important issue for me but being available when I need it is.

I will move out of Cambodia before I would ever sign up with EzeCON again, that should explain how I feel about that Company.

I will never use Sleazycom again. Bunch of wankers. If they spent half their advertising budget on providing a decent service they could be dangerous.

I use Hello 3G right now. Not overly enamored. I need a hard line anyhow as I want to provide the customers with WI-fi.

Interesting what you say about Metfone. Ive recently gone to digi at home and so far pretty pleased with it. Im on the 1mb, 15gb traffic for $35 a month. However you can use skype, gmail, facebook, dropbox and utorrent all day long for free via their ethernet service. Okay facebook and utorrent run slower than i would like, but they do have their own torrent and movie service and if they have want you want I have had speeds of 18mbs. Their Ping rate is the best I have experienced here, always below 100.

I like the sound of Metfone though. cccambodia is it possible for you to let the forum know the results from a www.speedtest.net and www.pingtest.net. Would be much appreciated.

When is Smart's new service starting?

As of 1st March (but without actually informing anyone) Hello have automatically migrated their existing 3G dongle postpaid customers (who like me used to pay $69 for "unlimited" but throttled down after 2GB and up to 512 kbps) to the mid-tier of their new package (Advance).

For some reason they do not post any info on this migration, or the new service package, on their website. What they now offer is:

Basic = Dongle $20 / and 5GB @ up to 384 Kbps after which throttled down - for Monthly fee of $20
Advance = Dongle $10 / and 15GB @ up to 1 Mbps after which throttled down - for Monthly fee of $40
Premium = Free dongle / and 30GB @ up to 3.6 Mbps after which throttled down - for Monthly fee of $60

For Advance I'm getting 1.04 Mbps download and 0.31 Mbps upload with a Ping rate of 194

which puts them back more competitively with Metfone - and no blogspot blackouts with Hello.

This is with Metfone:

Download Speed: 6577 kbps (822.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1538 kbps (192.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 245 ms
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 7:09:58 PM

Thanks Banker. Thats impressive speed. Thats 6.5Mbps right?

Can we confirm the Latency by running a ping test.

I use since about 1 year Mfone 3G for internet. However it is the very slowest internet connection I have experienced for almost 10 yrs. Even in locations with max signal strength - Typically in Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Kampot the speed is in the range of 2-8 kBps!!

These days I am looking for something much better and will test new 3G providers. In the Philippine islands I used to have even in most remote islands up to about 1Mbps.

I just tested Metfone. Out of 3 tests on speedtest.net with a pp server the best results were as follows

Ping. 381ms
DL. 1.0Mbps
UL:0.35Mbps

I will not be changing any time soon. The Ping rate is just too high. The other two test ran a higher ping and with a DL speed of about 0.65Mbps. Maybe the DL speed would be better in another area, im near Mobitel on Sihanouk blvd.

16:04 24/03/2011

Yeah thats much better, and with a server over in Saigon. Maybe it was just my location??

Anybody have any news on Smart's 4G?

I have heard some problems with Metfone 3G service throttling your bandwidth after 5 gig's of downloading. Has anyone experienced this?

I upload at least a gig of images a month to overseas clients along with my usual internet usage, I am a bit hesitant with the Metfone 3G service.

cheers Vinh, I was going to head down to see them this afternoon to get a SIM to test, might hang off until some more feedback on metfone throttling.

AG

I have been having problems with MetFone this past week, anyone else?

Anyone using metphone? just started this new topic as expat advisory might be blocked.... cant think why

Expat Advisory Blocked by metphone - anyone?