Our experience with Globe WiMax internet connectivity

We assessed our internet access options in 2010 and after considering PLDT, Smart and Globe, we arrived at Globe WiMax as our selection. PLDT, was immediately dismissed for not having enough lines available on our trunk run (Valladolid, Carcar City) and even at that, you needed to accept their phone service and overall, we were not impressed withtheir phone asistance in conveying all this info to us. Smart was not selected simply because in our location, we regularly have dropped calls on our Smart cell phones and since you access the same cell tower transponders with their broadband, we expect that the service would have been equally poor for broadband.

Price was virtually identical for Smart and Globe broadband at 999/995 php per month for up to 1 mb speed. We selected Globe, they came out in a couple days, installed the antenna and modem, no problem, all worked as expected.. .service staff were very friendly and professional. (wore booties or took off their shoes, while inside our residence). We had occasion to use their customer support a few weeks later (stopping in to report the problem at the Carcar office) when the service would not connect, they came out next day and swapped out the modem, all was great after that. Only thing was, we tried calling our Carcar office and could not get an answer, so went to visit them and learned that they do not answer their phone since all calls need to go to Manila..... Strange, but OK, whatever. A call to Manila setup that next day service call anf at no cost to us. One other time, we tried to get hours of operation from the local shop and were told to call Manila... get this, while we were standing in the Carcar office, the Carcar staff could not tell us their hours of operation... they advised us to call Manila.... Bordering on bizarre now..... So in front of them we did and then I could not resist informing the local stasff of their hours of operation.... Last but not least, as we are outside the country, our family experienced some PC problems and we were not able to use the internet connection this past month, so our lead family member went into the office and asked to put the account on hold for three months unti lwe returned and could sort out the PC problems... they sent someone out (note, the local office did have this ability as they did not in 2010)... the tech said we needed to re-format our PC.... OK, sorry, that is not happening on the word of a Globe tech so we wanted to go on hold..... The local office said, you must be there in person( able to caht with them using the technicians cell phone)... we said whatever, and our family member went in to put it on hold... they then said, "sorry, cannot do this from our office"... What? You told us to come in here to put it on hold... , again, smiling.... "Sorry, you need to send a letter to Manila." So we get this feedback to us and we call Manila ourselves and after 30 minutes, long distance, no answer... we send our family member to the Carcar office and then call our own cell phone and put the Carcar Globe person on OUR phone to talk to them. They reinforced that a letter needs to go to Manila for a hold on the account.... Said we could not get a response from Manila and then were told, OK, we can do it, but you will STILL need to pay your monthly charges...... (can you see me turning red at this point?) We said, the hell with it, we are past our 1 year contract so just cancel it and we will return the equipment..... No, cannot do that, we need to remove the equipment ourselves and you need to pay the costs of that removal. At this point I get on the phone and ruin the whole situation by telling the bayot on the line to cancle our account as we will not be paying it any longer, get your equipment off my property at your expense and within a week or it WILL be removed and returned to your office... to which I got, "No need to be angry sir, but actually, we can pickup the equipment at no charge and because you are mean to us you are now blacklisted and can never get a Globe account again. I reply that this suits us fine as we are no longer interested in your poor version of customer support, so shove this service up you're a&&. I wrote a summary of this experience in a Globe feedback message to Manila... we got a return email the next day apologizing for clear breaches of the customer service policies and were advised that our account was not blacklisted and we could return whenever we liked. It is unlikley that anything at the Carcar office has or will change... but they told us what the queue cards said we wanted to hear, and in a sympathetic tone.

ALL that said, when we get setup to start work on the project, the same criteria for evaluation may still lead us to the best operational internet connectivity being Globe so we will return to that service unless Smarts' signal strength has improved. Possibly using a usb dongle so that I can access while at work on the project. Our experience with Globe connectivity was fine for a long time and only when our PC had an issue, we could not rectify from afar, were we faced with the challenge of ending a service we did not currently need. The moral of the story is that we try to base our opinions and selections on the package as in this world, all service and support is a crap shoot at best and therefore, not a factor. I suspect that this story could have just as easily been about Smart, I suppose and as time has passed, we have learned of very few positive experiences with PLDT... so the worse of all evils is often times the selecitions we are faced with.

What are some other's experiences? Anyone use Smart or PLDT and have a positive experience? Anyone have any positive customer support experiences at all? :thumbsup: