A few notes on the availability of Internet service in Tigbauan, Iloio and on the “SmartBro” wireless Internet available from Smart Telecom and “WiMax” available from Globe Telecom.
Both Globe and Smart wired DSL may be available in parts of Tigbauan. Since we built our home in a place without telephone lines, wired DSL is not an option for us.
When we lived in Iloilo City we had Globe 1MPS DSL. The quality was not especially good. Sometimes we’d get the 1MPS, but often the service was slow and unreliable. When we moved to an apartment in Tigbauan we used PLDT’s SmartBro wireless broadband, the kind with an antenna on the roof pointed at a base station on the nearest Smart cell tower. We were surprisingly happy with SmartBro. It was not fast. We had the “999″ plan which gives us unlimited Internet access at “up to” 384K for P999 per month. It’s was not suitable for streaming video or large downloads but works pretty well for routine web browsing, downloads and VOIP. It was reliable, more reliable than our Globe 1MPS DSL which rarely reached anything like 1MPS and often just stalled out loading pages.
Smart cell tower in Tigbauan with SmartBro base stations circled
That was until we built and moved into our new house. We checked with PLDT before we bought our Tigbauan property about the availability of PLDT’s “SmartBro”. Our property was quite close to the Smart cell tower, but for some reason the SmartBro service at the new house has been lousy, much worse than at our Tigbauan apartment. It seems to be getting worse, despite many complaints to Smart and promises that it would be fixed. According to Smart representative there are problems with the base station antenna on the Smart tower. VOIP is virtually unusable, streaming video only a dream. Finally we gave up on SmartBro at our new house and signed up for Globe 1MB WiMax service. It has it’s problems too, but generally VOIP is usable, a key factor for us.
The Globe sign-up process was an adventure. Globe’s WiMax site prominently offers a thirty day trial period on WiMax. The Globe staff seemed unaware of this policy, some saying that it only applied in Manila. We had to call Manila to convince the Globe Iloilo staff that the satisfaction guarantee applied to Iloilo.
We had signed a two year contract with Smart and they were not anxious to let us out of it. Initially they did not approve our request to cancel the contract. Then they asked us to write a description of why we wanted out of the contract. We had saved proof of poor connection quality in the form of screen-shots from speedtest.net and had documented our numerous complaints to Smart. We put this together in the form of a letter to Smart’s vice president for network quality and delivered the letter to the Smart office at SM City Iloilo. We said we’d mail the letter documenting Smart’s lousy service to Smart HQ in Makati if our contract cancellation request was not approved. Three days later we received a call saying our request had been approved. Hopefully Smart will resolve their problems.
Smart Telecom technician with SmartBro rooftop antenna
Mounting the SmartBro wireless Internet antenna, Tigbauan, Iloilo. The antenna is pointed toward a Smart cell tower. The towers are equipped with special wifi transceivers. The system works best if you're within one kilometer of a Smart cellular tower.
Here’s the speedtest.net results measured on my SmartBro connection very early in the morning at our Tigbauan apartment — not bad!
Here’s a speedtest.net result at our new house. A dial-up modem would be an improvement:
Smart's SmartBro service at our new house
Globe WiMax Huawei BM 622i Modem
This is the Huawai BM622i modem supplied by Globe for WiMax service. Normally it’s connected to an outside antenna via a cable but we are so close to the Globe cell tower providing the service that we have 100% signal strength using the internal antenna in the Huawai. Now that we’ve solved the DNS connectivity problems, we’re happy with the Globes service. We just made a long call to the U.S. using Google Voice. The call was free and the quality good. At first we were getting about .75MB download speeds but that has declined to about .35MB.
Also note that the Huawai has a port for a telephone. Once Globe gets around to upgrading its service in Tigbauan, they’ll be able to offer a wireless “landline” service. That will be great for us because there is no landline service where we live.
For details on how we solved our DNS server problems, see: /globe-internet-dns-problems/
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April 20, 2012 at 1:20 am
The problem we have is that the government has brought in a new law that limits the height of antennas to 10 feet. Because our house is not neat a cell tower we have or rather had a 40 foot antenna to get a wireless internet signal.
As our internet contract has reached the end of the two year contract Global has now taken down the antenna leaving us with no internet as a 10 foot antenna could not get an adequate signal. I hope we can find a solution to our internet problem in the future but it may take some time!
April 21, 2012 at 5:32 am
That’s a very sad story. Can you try SmartBro? How about those USB dongles. They are slow but at least provide some Internet access. Anyway, good luck.
February 4, 2012 at 8:02 am
I’ve got the Smartbro pre paid plug in and when I was living in Barotac Nuevo near the tower I was constantly being cut off and the signal was choppy.
Now we live about 10 kilometers from there towards Iloilo and although farther from the tower the signal strength is four or five bars. But the problem is during the day between school runs when so many users bombard the bandwidth with so much usage we often get cut every few minutes. At night after midnight when most finally go to sleep I can download large files without interruption or problems. Any other time will make anyone smash their Smart bro plug in module against a concrete wall. It’s so frustrating to try to email a simple small email during the days.
February 11, 2012 at 2:57 pm
I’ve used one of those USB SmartBros. They are handy when traveling but not good for regular use. Can you get the regular SmartBro with the roof mounted antenna or the Globe WiMax?
December 10, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Do they not have satellite internet like the hugesnet here in the states?
December 13, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Not that I know of but perhaps someone else better informed can contribute.
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September 26, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Same boat some problem! I have had problems for nearly 3 months with the antenna I have installed. Eventually climbing up and fixing it myself. But for a country striving to be the BPO capital of the world how can it manage it without basic infrastructure?
I can understand the issues of poor internet due to the island setup but I live in Cebu and its not exactly in the wilderness yet this year have heard of more people having problems that have been subscribers for some time. Is the service being cut back to save money is the real question as “capping” was on the cards and I know in the UK ISPs illegally cap all the time without most people realising so here its more likely.
October 8, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Globe punishes you if you use more than 25gig per month with their supposed 1M unlimited service which is actually 100K at best. The punishment is a 30k cap until you behave.
February 5, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Hi Bob, its me again Rex from california, thanks for the advice about the door to door cargo, i have sent the first package last month and it should get there on the 12th of feb. Anyway i need to know if you can recomend any internet cafe for my friend to use around barrio barroc, he never use a computer in his life and I’m a little frustrated with the communication issue, we talk via cell ph. and its hard for him because of the cell load it get expensive. I want to teach him how to use the internet but he needs to find an internet cafe first. Is there any around the area?
January 11, 2010 at 8:10 am
I came across this chart listing the ten top countries in the world for broadband speed – the Philippines as the 78th in the world for broadband speed.
Top Countries by Download Speed
1. 23.84 Mb/s Korea, Republic of
2. 17.01 Mb/s Japan
3. 16.43 Mb/s Aland Islands
4. 15.99 Mb/s Latvia
5. 14.64 Mb/s Romania
6. 14.46 Mb/s Lithuania
7. 14.37 Mb/s Sweden
8. 13.73 Mb/s Netherlands
9. 13.38 Mb/s Bulgaria
10. 12.92 Mb/s Andorra
11. 11.79 Mb/s Moldova, Republic of
12. 10.34 Mb/s Hong Kong
13. 10.18 Mb/s Portugal
14. 9.98 Mb/s Slovakia
**78. 2.52 Mb/s Philippines**
That 2.52 Mb/s for the Philippines is three times faster than my SmartBro connection in Tigbauan!
January 2, 2010 at 5:27 pm
We’ll be retiring in Miagao starting February. Do you know or can you recommend a good value internet service provider in that area?
Thanks!
January 2, 2010 at 6:42 pm
These are educated assumptions only. Much will depend exactly where you are. If you are on or near the National Highway, you may be able to get wired DSL starting at about P1,000 per month. If you are further out you can probably get SmartBro wireless Internet — sort of like WiMax — for the same cost. If you are too far out, too far from a Smart cell tower, you may struggle to get any Internet. When you get the real information, please post it here.
Good luck!
Bob