Sirius Broadband / Zip bd ISP In-depth Review
I had lousy experiences with most of the ISPs in Dhaka. The service is unreliable, the speed is at a turtle’s pace and customer service is downright unprofessional. But Sirius Broadband is none of that.
I am currently using the Xpress package for TK1,500 per month and I highly recommend this to any home user. My only complain with Sirius Broadband is the TK5,000 start-up fee which is somewhat high compared with other ISPs. Still, Sirius gives good value for money. You get a fibre optic connection and a DSL modem.
The Xpress package has a shared bandwidth of 128kbps download abut in reality you would get around 20-30kbps. This is not bad considering that other ISPs offer a paltry 5-10kbps. Browsing the internet with Zip bd’s Xpress package is fine and web pages load in a snap. If you’re thinking of online gaming at these speeds - you’d better forget it. It lags way too much. However, I do have an article detailing how to play games online with a slow internet speed.
You do, however, get good value for your money. Sirius Broadband does have a dedicated online gaming server but there is a lack of gamers and A-List games support. If you do want to game online, then you might find someone in Zip bd’s online forum and set up a date.
Then there is also music and movies on demand. While I didn’t use those, I did enjoy the IPTV, which is the next best thing I love about Zip bd. Currently, channels are limited to national coverage (such as nTV, BTV), but there are a couple of satellite channels such as Fashion TV.
But I would recommend Zip bd/Sirius Broadband for it’s superb reliability and service. Your connection won’t be down even in a storm. I did notice a dropout now-and-then but it was due to maintenance and was resolved promptly.
I have nothing to complain about Sirius Broadband except for it’s high set-up-fee. Other than that, this is the best ISP I have seen in Dhaka to-date and provides additional service at no extra cost. I would recommend Sirius Broadband/Zip bd to anyone without hesitation.
Check out the official Sirius Broadband for line rates and Zipbd for extra services that you get with your package.
SPEED TEST
I did a bandwidth speed test at SpeedTest. Since there are no servers available in Bangladesh, I had to choose the nearest one located at Mumbai, India. Here are the results:
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Jan 16th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
yo bro, zip reduces the speed later to 10kb. expect dat 30kbps speed to go away soon. plus vod has been removed, government banned it. and u’ll find out soon dat zip’s cache can cause touble at times. just wait bro, i got the same speed wen i 1st took my connection….things change real fast
Jan 18th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Hi Ayman,
Thanks for your comments. I forgot that Zip has stopped VOD services. And as for the speed, well it’s not terrible. But I recall getting amazing speeds when I first signed up (that was in 2006-2007) and now speeds have gone down.
Mar 13th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Dude, do you get 20 kbps or 20 kBps ? is it Bit or Byte? Cause your speed test shows 194 kbps. Wow, thats pretty good.
I pay my isp tk 3000 per month and get only 90 kbps. What a shame
Mar 19th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Hi Omi,
Thanks for your comment. I think you should switch to Sirius Broadband/Zip as I use them and get good speeds. What ISP are you currently using? And look for ads in the paper, I also found a shared 512kbps for Tk1,600.
Apr 23rd, 2008 at 4:28 am
Guys,
Thanks for writing such informative post and comments. But I am very very curious. I am in Chittagong I get 20kBps (KiloByte) with my GP connection. These few months I even get 26kBps. I guess in Dhaka you don’t get that. What a shame, I used to use a net connection from Sirius Broadband/Zip in Dhaka, when I was staying there 3 years ago. It was terrible. Anyways, I never though of playing online games with such slow speed. Is that an option? You guys ever tired WoW?
I am a very passionate game fan. I am using a laptop for last one year, so cant upgrade it anymore. So to play new games, I gotta get a console. I am thinking about PS2, cause I am not sure about PS3 and Xbox360 in BD (Pirated blu-ray disks? HD content over slow net connection? and red ring of death? doesn’t look that attractive.). Can you give me an idea from where I can buy game consoles in BD? I guess I have to go to Dhaka. Which one do you guys suggest.
Also, I thought people buy legitimate consoles in BD, I was always curious about how they play pirated games in those. Please give me some info or make a post in this regard. Thanks. (Sorry if this is the wrong post to comment these against!!)
May 9th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I had terrible experience with Sirius. I was one of their earliest clients (circa 2002) and found their gaming support to be quite terrible. The service was also heavily firewalled meaning that I could not play games such as Age of Empires III on the MSN Gaming Zone (which I used to play on a dial up!). Basically, I considered my ‘Zip phase’ to be a waste of taka 20,000, a considerable waste (especially considering that I was a student) that taught me some hard lessons. On a sidenote, in this country, being a technological laggard has its advantages.
But of course, I must also agree that the service (at least in its earlier stages, and I presume even now) was more geared toward providing a ‘faster browsing speed’ rather than ‘good online gaming’ which I was looking. As such, caveat emptor (let the buyer beware).
In any case, I do wish my fellow Bangladeshi gamer the best of luck in finding a good ISP and a smooth connection to play online over!
Best, Monwar
May 29th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Hey few days back I took a connection from ZIP.I managed to burden on the setup fee and reduce it to 2000tk.I use DAP for downloads and believe me I got up to 65kb/s….I was satisfied.But after some days It started to give me 3kb/s and a maximum of 8kb/s..and even the connection was not available 24hrs…then some how i found out that ZIP cheated with me.They didnt even registered me because i burdened with them, i never took a further step towards it.Now Im connected with ‘YOU’internet service,da speed is not greate as ZIP but it connects me 24hrs and i get a avarage of 10kb/s.Be careful before u connect with ZIP.
Jun 4th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Hi Ashraf,
Well I don’t know about you but I still get good speed from Zip. I got download speeds of 240kbps (30KBps) yesterday and I use Free Download Manager. Well sorry to hear about that.
Jun 4th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I use Sirus but according to a nearest Thailand speed check center Agni is much faster than Sirus. However, i am satisfied.
Jun 5th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
hey Mushfiqur,
the reason i think that ZIP did not limited your internet speed maybe bc0s ur not a heavy downloader. [i never turn off my pc at night...im always downloading something]
Zip usually blocks clients after a month of using P2P softwares to download stuffs, and if you use torrents they will immediately block you and u’ll get speeds like 3-8 KB/s
Well, im done with ZIP. Now im using connection from BDCom. its not bad….browsing is blazing fast n i get lyk download speed lyk 12KB/s - 15KB/s. besides, the monthly rent is tk. 1000.
i’ve heard about Sirius broadband from mah friends n dey say itz really good but i wud suggest ZIP broadband to nobody [no hard feelings, eh!]
Adios
Jun 6th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Hi Asif,
I just remebered. Yes, Zip does “seem” to limit your speeds. I often had some downloads overnight and Bittorrent running in the background, and next morning I woke up to find that the download didn’t complete because they cut off my connection temporarily. And the speed was really bad the whole day.
Jun 19th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Dear all
Just buy a Edge modem (maximum 5000 taka) + use Grameen Phone Unlimited internet for 1150 taka per month.
its speed is always good. I got average 25KBPS always. torrents works. only problem, when you try to download from rapidshare since its ip shared so u have to wait long time to get chance. sometimes u don’t.
most importantly, u can take ur internet anyware since its a USB modem.
Don’t have to worry about thunderstorm or line cut or server electricity down ! GP server always active.
good luck
Touhid
Jun 23rd, 2008 at 5:42 am
@ Touhid
But Grameen doesn’t give you as fast speeds as Zip/Sirius Broadband does. Although Grameen’s network is highly reliable, but I often have trouble using Grameen mobile on my mobile.
Jul 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
hi. lets post our speedtest.net results. so everyone can see and compare different isps.
Jul 2nd, 2008 at 4:05 am
@ Romi
That is a good idea. You can find my test result above, what speed do you get?
Jul 2nd, 2008 at 9:07 pm
@gaming wiz
download: 152 kb/s
upload: 114 kb/s
Server: bangkok
tests were conducted at NEW DOHS dhaka. forgot the name of the isp supplier…multimedia ….something
Jul 3rd, 2008 at 5:26 am
@romidhaka
Wow, that’s really good. And how much do you pay per month?
Jul 3rd, 2008 at 6:40 am
@ mushfiqur
1700tk/month.
well results vary…now i’m getting download of 128 kbps and upload 114 kbps.
well your results are much better!!!!
Jul 3rd, 2008 at 8:41 am
@romidhaka
My speeds also vary from 80kbps to 240kbps. However, Sirius is giving me problems nowadays and I can’t get connection for like 60% of the time. Did you remeber the name of your ISP?
Jul 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
@ mushfiq
created a forum on this topic…..
http://bdnetusers.foromotion.net