PLDT DSL question

[Mr. Bobo]

12 hours ago, robert k said:

Not so much adjust frequencies as my Huawei Mediapad allows me to ignore certain frequencies. I have noticed that if you can barely acquire LTE a device may ignore a HSPA+ signal that is much stronger and actually be a better connection. The same that some devices working off cell towers may not make the hand off until the previous tower is undetectable and or you power cycle the device. My device will work with Globe or Smart, whichever is best by changing the sim card. I always try to buy devices that will work with either. I used an antennae and a power booster, the antennae worked, the power booster had no noticeable effect, the device would show maximum signal even when the connection was unusable, double nothing is still nothing, of course.

The equipment in the Philippines is generally capable, I'm sure it is throttled. In a place where I normally never got more than 200KB/s previously I once got 2MB/s for exactly 8 hours and like throwing a switch it went to 16KB/s. I think someone woke up and noticed. The capability is there just the bandwidth isn't. It's like them selling people fiber to get 50MB/s, ordinary cable can do that if they provide the bandwidth.

If I needed a really good connection I could drive 10 Km in to downtown Dumaguete and download whatever I needed using pay as I go so they don't throttle. I never used anyones wifi there because the broadband I could pull down was superior and for 11 pennies/5 php for 15 minutes it was a bargain. I was never throttled doing pay as you go without promos. I DL 6 GB of data one time in about 2 hours cost me 50 php. My plan in the US would have cost me $60 for 6GB broadband data. I thought it was the bargain of the century. My next accommodations I'm going to check for good broadband before I rent. I had heard too many horror stories of people waiting for a router for two weeks because the provider didn't have any. I have commitment issues with cable providers in the US, signing a contract in the Philippines is out of the question.

 

Robert,

When my bandwidth started to slow down 2 weeks into a 30 day prepaid SmartBro throttling was the first thing that came to my mind. There were times when I had to download many GBs of data due a new release of Android or a significant upgrade to an existing Android operating system because I would have to load the new software into Android Studio which is the development environment that I use on my laptop. I started to notice a pattern, after downloading large files (GBs) my bandwidth would drop significantly. I agree with you about throttling and my guess is that all mobile carriers in the Philippines do it. I now avoid downloading large files like the plague.

I decided to take the apartment in Solano with a 6 month lease. It's only 9000p a month. My wife was a former city councilor here in Aritao (pop 40,000) from 2007-2010, she just ran for office again in the recent May 9 election and was elected. Money is really not an issue as I have a very good pension and my social security. The additional income from my wife being a councilor city makes the decision a no brainer. The only real inconvenience is that Solano is about an hour's drive from Aritao. Hopefully within the next 6 months when my lease is up in Solano SmartBro will have fixed their infrastructure issues and start delivering 4G LTE technology here in Aritao and my life can return to normalcy.            

[mogo51]

As suggested in another post, it seems not much will improve until some more competition is allowed into the market.?

[Sander Martin]

The prepaid ones are crap even if you live in a built up area. My fiance used to work and live in IT Park cebu and had that Smartbro prepaid crap. Only rarely would she have good internet...

[robert k]

30 minutes ago, Sander Martin said:

The prepaid ones are crap even if you live in a built up area. My fiance used to work and live in IT Park cebu and had that Smartbro prepaid crap. Only rarely would she have good internet...

This is why I opted for just putting load on my phone which was tethered to my laptop at need and paying 5 php for each 15 minute segment of internet. I would turn off internet when I didn't need it. Pay as you go from regular load, I was never personally throttled even downloading 6GB of data in 2 hours because I think they know that if they throttle you, you will just turn it off. This is not to say that I was never in an area that the whole area was throttled in my opinion. When the bought bandwidth is inadequate the system will slow everyone down.

 I never saw a plan or a promo that I liked.

Edited May 24, 2016 by robert k

[i am bob]

Smart had been using the "we are updating our system" excuse since they got into wireless signals...  the real problem?  They can't handle the traffic they get...  inadequate equipment...  grrrrr!

[robert k]

26 minutes ago, i am bob said:

Smart had been using the "we are updating our system" excuse since they got into wireless signals...  the real problem?  They can't handle the traffic they get...  inadequate equipment...  grrrrr!

Bob, I'm fairly certain that the equipment is good enough, it's just that the system will ration out the bandwidth that it has. If the provider bought 10 times the bandwidth, I don't think they would need to do much to the equipment for awhile as everyone would be shocked when the system stopped throttling.