Shopping for an Internet Service Provider

My weeks of wait, my efforts of contacting the customer service, and the anxiety and hope all came to naught last Sunday as the technicians confirmed that my home is indeed beyond the reach of Smart Broadband’s signal. The mountains are blocking Smart’s tower and so signal can’t be obtained even if they raise the Canopy to thirty feet above the roof of my house.

Too bad for me since I am back to zero in my goal to install an internet connection in my home. I am back at looking for an alternative to Smart Bro. PLDT MyDSL is out of the choices since my area is banned by PLDT because many evildoers are stealing telephone wires (there is one time that our street experienced a blackout for a whole day because the thief stole the electric wires). So here I am again, researching and planning my next move.

So far, here are my other options:

Globe Broadband

This is the internet broadband counterpart of Globe Telecommunication. My problem with it is the high probability that our home is also beyond the reach of Globe’s signal. Last year, I used Globe in my cellphone but I am forced to shift to Smart because Globe’s signal is very weak if I am inside the house. The weak signal always forces me to go out of the house just to call or to receive a text message.

The good news is that the broadband’s signal is different from the signal used by 3G phones so it is also possible that we have a Globe Broadband signal in our area.

Sun Broadband

Sun Broadband offers more affordable plans than Smart and Globe. However, I am thinking that Sun Cellular has limited coverage in our town. I bought a Sun Cellular Sim months ago to avail their Sun to Sun unlimited call, but the signal is choppy and I am forced to walk a block away from our house just to get a clear signal. With this, I believe that my area is also beyond the reach of Sun Cellular’s broadband internet.

 

Smart Plan 799

This is another offering of Smart Telecom, which uses a USB dongle as a modem. The dongle has a SIM inside. Plan 799 allows the subscriber to surf the World Wide Web for a maximum of 80 hours per month. My brother already has this dongle and it works well inside the house. The Smart Bro technician mentioned that the dongle uses the signal used by 3G phones to connect to the internet.

I plan to experiment on this dongle and have it installed outside of the house and connected to the computer by a long wire. If all goes well, then I am thinking of applying for Smart’s plan 799.

Satellite Internet

This is my last option and I will only choose this if I am desperate enough. This option is the most expensive of the four. I am yet to research on this, but I already saw that Dream TV is offering this kind of internet connection. My brother also mentioned of Green Cell, which costs about 3,500 pesos a month with a really reliable internet connection. However, many people in an online forum insist against satellite internet because it is not ideal in the Philippines. Satellite signals are affected by weather disturbances like typhoons and heavy rains. The Philippines are frequented by typhoons, thus the monthly cost will not reciprocate with the benefits that I will receive.

I am sad that Smart Bro did not work in my area, especially now that I really want to have an internet connection in my own house. Renting PC in an internet café is costly for a blogger like me. The set-up also restricts activities in the net and is risky because of the viruses that are present in most internet café. I do hope that one of my options here give me the internet connection that I need. As for now, I will pester Smart’s customer service representatives and ask for a refund of my payment for their botched up Plan 999.
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