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If you thought Hotlink’s Unlimited Prepaid 50GB Fair Use Policy (FUP) fiasco was bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. It appears that Maxis is now throttling all Hotlink Prepaid Unlimited users to a measly 512 kbps for 4 hours per day.
A user had reported this issue to us after receiving confirmation from a Maxis customer service representative on WhatsApp. According to the representative, the new “Fair Use Policy” was introduced due to the Motion Control Order (MCO) and users will be limited to only 512 kbps from 8 pm to 12 am every day. This seems to be applicable to unlimited 3Mbps (RM35 / month) and 6Mbps (RM45 / month) users.
One of our colleagues had recently noticed that he couldn’t stream HD videos on his unlimited 6Mbps Hotlink plan at night. Initially you thought it might be a network issue, but now it’s clear that Maxis has been slowing down on purpose.
To make matters worse, you are still limited even if you have purchased a data plugin. From the looks of it, it is clear that most users were not aware of the new policy. Imagine paying for 6Mbps, but you only get 1/12 of the speeds from 8pm to 12am
According to the Hotlink Prepaid Unlimited page, users can expect HD (720p) streaming on the 3Mbps plan and Full HD (1080p) on the 6Mbps option. The supposed 512 kbps limitation between 8 pm and 12 am is not mentioned anywhere on their website, T&C, and FAQ at the time of writing.
The current FAQ clearly states that the FUP for high speed data is limited to 5 GB for the day pass, 15 GB for the weekly pass, and 50 GB for the monthly pass. No time restriction is mentioned and users should get their maximum speed if they do not reach the specified quota.
The new limitation policy on behalf of FUP is totally unfair to consumers. This is a clear violation of the General Consumer Code and MCMC must take more steps to protect consumers. Not only did Maxis not inform customers about the new policy, it is not mentioned anywhere on its website, FAQs, and terms and conditions.
It’s terrible for Maxis to quietly restrict users and use OLS as an excuse. The MCO is intended to restrict movement to contain the pandemic, not for telcos to impose data rate limits.
It seems that Maxis is freely imposing restrictions based on his whims and fantasies. If your network is struggling to cope with demand during the MCO, perhaps Maxis shouldn’t have offered unlimited plans in the first place. Why promise something they can’t deliver?
We reached out to Maxis for clarification and will update this post once we have more information.
If you are not satisfied with the policy, you can file a complaint with the MCMC through the SKMM Customs portal under “False declaration of service” for false advertising.
Thank you @leekokwan for the tip!
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