Celcom now lets you run 5G speedtest without deducting high-speed data quota

Technology
2 Nov 2022 • 9:50 PM MYT
SoyaCincau
SoyaCincau

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Unlike Yes 5G and Unifi Mobile, Celcom isn’t offering unlimited 5G data for its 5G-enabled postpaid and prepaid plans. This means Celcom customers that use 5G on DNB’s network will utilise their existing high-speed data quota. Yesterday, it seems that several Celcom customers with limited high-speed data quota were shocked to find a huge chunk of the data depleted just after running a couple of speedtests.

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Data consumption for running speedtest on 5G

In case you didn’t know, the amount of data used on speedtest increases if you have a high-speed connection. As shown above, a speedtest with over 600Mbps download and 50Mbps upload consumes more than 1GB per test. Meanwhile, a speedtest with over 1200Mbps download and 120Mbps upload would utilise close to 2GB per test. This shows how easy it is to utilise your high-speed data just by running a couple of speedtests on a non-unlimited 5G plan.

However, it seems that Celcom has started whitelisting Ookla’s Speedtest from its data calculation. Najib from SoyaCincau BM had ran a couple of speedtests this morning but his high-speed data remains intact. At 10:27am, he ran a speedtest which provided over 500Mbps download and 39Mbps upload, with more than 800MB data used, but his data quota was not deducted on the Celcom Life app.

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Before and After running speedtest on 5G

After doing other online activities such as web surfing and YouTube video streaming in the highest quality, he noticed that his data usage was deducted. This proves that the Celcom Life App has no delay and it is showing the remaining high-speed data in real time.

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Before and After downloading offline Netflix video

He even downloaded two Netflix movies for offline viewing and 1GB was immediately deducted from his remaining quota. Then, he proceed to run another round of Speedtest which consumed nearly 700MB but the Speedtest usage didn’t deduct any data from his high-speed quota.

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Before and After running speedtest on 5G

Based on this observation, we can confirm that Celcom will deduct your high-speed quota when you’re using it 5G but it appears that Ookla Speedtest has been excluded from its data usage calculation. Are you experiencing the same thing on Celcom with a 5G plan? Do let us know your experience and if your data quota was deducted after running speedtests after 10am today.

To recap, Celcom has enabled 5G access for selected postpaid plans such as Celcom Mega Lightning 80 and above, as well as Xpax Prepaid 35 and 45 with high-speed data. On top of that, Celcom has also upgraded the high-speed data quota for its Mega Lighting 188 plan from 120GB to 2TB.

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