Internet reliability and brownout occurances in Dumaguete and Panglao Island

[Badi]

Hello out there, I am newly arrived and based in Cebu.  I would like to move at some point to either Dumaguete or Panglao Island, Bohol.  I work online, so need a reliable internet service and would be grateful for any feedback from folks living in those two places.  Brown outs are a concern, too.  

[Old55]

Hi Badi, welcome to the forum. 

[Guy F.]

Plenty of brownouts on Dauis-Panglao (DP) Island and in Bohol as a whole. Every month or 2 there is a planned power interruption all day for "maintenance". Under normal circumstances all of Bohol's electricity comes from Leyte, so a natural disaster which damages the main line, such as a typhoon or earthquake, can result in no electricity for weeks or even months.

[Jollygoodfellow]

5 hours ago, Badi said:

I would like to move at some point to either Dumaguete

Friends on Facebook who are members here to seem to post very often of brownouts or planned outages in Dumaguete. I'm sure they will chime in soon. 

[Dave Hounddriver]

3 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

Friends on Facebook who are members here to seem to post very often of brownouts or planned outages in Dumaguete. I'm sure they will chime in soon. 

Yep.  Brownouts in and around Dumaguete occur at least once a month.  Those are the scheduled brownouts of about 12 hours more or less.  Then there are the unscheduled ones that can last from minutes to all day.  Rarely out more than a day though.

Metro Cebu used to have lots of brownouts, 15 years ago.  How is it now?

[Kingpin]

2 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Metro Cebu used to have lots of brownouts, 15 years ago.  How is it now?

Nothing for at least 5 years before Odette, and nothing since. Thanks to VECO my plans to buy a generator have gradually evaporated.

[OzeMike]

Yes we do get too many brown outs in Dumaguete. You learn to live with them but they are very annoying....generators for some...we haven't got one. We use rechargeable fans/lights, a decent sized UPS for the internet modem (PLDT Fibr) and if out a whole day I use a Power Converter from the Pajero to run the computer and modem. The fridge doors are not opened if possible.

Many of the brown outs here are relatively short ones except the scheduled half or full day ones. 

If it gets a lot worse I guess a generator is the next step.

[Badi]

Thanks for the low down Dave and Mike. Seems I better stay put in Cebu City!

[BrettGC]

This was at a reasonably busy intersection in Dumaguete in the 19th of January.  No, it's not a meme, this happened just down the road from where we used to live in Junob.  Just up the road from Brew Garden near the Bagacay markets for those that know the area. 

In May last year when we still lived there, power was out for two days due to an enclosed trailer on a 24 wheeler that caught these same wires and kept going for nearly 200 metres before he realised. We'd also have blackouts every couple of days for up to an hour due to faulty equipment and breakers on the lines to our subdivision.  All indicative of the local power co-op's (NORECO II) either inability or unwillingness to get the infrastructure to a reasonable level.  

I have to say though that our internet was flawless.  100mb fibre with Globe and we routinely had connection speeds, both up and down, higher than that.  Negligiable packet loss when I tested the lines constantly for 2 weeks. 

We didn't have a generator or UPS (uninterrupted power supply) at the time which would have gone a long way towards solving the power issue.  We now have both a UPS and a portable solar battery source (it can be charged on AC as well).  Funnily enough, since we've moved north of Dumaguete to "the province", we barely need them; NORECO I runs the show where we are now. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by BrettGC

[hk blues]

5 hours ago, BrettGC said:

This was at a reasonably busy intersection in Dumaguete in the 19th of January.  No, it's not a meme, this happened just down the road from where we used to live in Junob.  Just up the road from Brew Garden near the Bagacay markets for those that know the area. 

In May last year when we still lived there, power was out for two days due to an enclosed trailer on a 24 wheeler that caught these same wires and kept going for nearly 200 metres before he realised. We'd also have blackouts every couple of days for up to an hour due to faulty equipment and breakers on the lines to our subdivision.  All indicative of the local power co-op's (NORECO II) either inability or unwillingness to get the infrastructure to a reasonable level.  

I have to say though that our internet was flawless.  100mb fibre with Globe and we routinely had connection speeds, both up and down, higher than that.  Negligiable packet loss when I tested the lines constantly for 2 weeks. 

We didn't have a generator or UPS (uninterrupted power supply) at the time which would have gone a long way towards solving the power issue.  We now have both a UPS and a portable solar battery source (it can be charged on AC as well).  Funnily enough, since we've moved north of Dumaguete to "the province", we barely need them; NORECO I runs the show where we are now. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  

 

Yep, we've likely all seen similar around us. From my understanding most of the tangled mess are actually 'dead' and remnants of previous installations so not as bad as it looks.  I know for sure that Globe didn't remove our old copper cable when installing fiber despite local requirement to do so.