Where is my billing statement?

At the end of this month, I’ll be on my third as a Smart Bro subscriber. And if you’ve read my previous blog, it was not all happy moments for me. Twice I requested for on-site tech support and numerous phone calls were made to their customer care group.

For the first month, I was not able to receive my billing statement so I said to myself gee… this service maybe for free? On the following days, I received a text message telling me to pay a certain amount for my broadband service. The only available mode of payment for me would be through the bank. But before I went to the bank, I visited Smart’s local “office” and asked for my billing statement. They said they are not the ones in-charge for it, they do not accept payments and suggested that I checked our local post office. I went to the post office, asked the person there to check if I have a mail from Smart Bro and found out there’s none. Conveniently enough, the post office is near the bank where I do most of our family’s banking needs. I asked a friend who works for the bank on how they handle payments for Smart Bro and she told me that I need to present the billing statement because they need a portion of it for processing. Feeling being passed on too many times, I tried checking on my friend who is also a subscriber and she said that I don’t have to pay anything because I haven’t received my billing statement. She has a point, as a customer, I think I have the right to be presented of the bill I have to pay (although I already know how much). Another point is for traceability, keeping receipts of any purchase is the same as keeping billing statements as proof of services/products received. I called their customer service and they told me my billing statement was already sent and suggested that I view the statement on the web. On their website, I need to enroll before I can view it so I clicked “register.” I need to enter my “account number” which was supplied to me when applied for the service but I don’t know what is a “service reference number.” So I checked their online help and found out that the service reference number is printed on my billing statement! Pissed with the whole thing, I decided not pay the first month although it bugged me most of the time that I did not.

The end of the following month is approaching, and again I am yet to receive my billing statement. I called their customer support again and told them my problem regarding the service reference number and it turned out, what was given to me initially was not my account number but my service reference number… ay sus! So knowing both numbers, I was able to register and view my billing statement online but I stressed that they have to still send my printed statement. All I have to do to finally pay my dues is to print the online statement and present it to the bank. With this kind of setup, I don’t know if Smart is saving up on paper in order to save trees from being cut, stop climate change, save the world or their just being cheap or worst they can’t get their act together. My previous suspicion is of course not their intent because I am the one printing and wasting paper… di ba! The funny thing is, after two days of paying my first two months bill, I received a letter from Smart Bro telling me to settle my dues and here’s the first part,


Dear Valued Subscriber,

You may have overlooked payment for your latest Smart Bro bill with Account No. XXXXXXX, or failed to receive your previous month’s billing statements, which may explain the overdue status of your account.


Thank you for calling me a valued subscriber but I prefer screwed. Well, at least they suspect that I failed to receive my billing statement. The question is, are they doing something about it or they really want to save a lot of trees?... which is a good cause by the way.

Nearing the end of my third month as a subscriber, my billing statement is still nowhere to be found… I guess I won’t pay this month’s bill again and just pay it after two months. I am too trying very much to save those trees… and save the world.

Are you a satisfied SmartBro Subscriber?

For the past two weeks, I have experienced intermittent connection and slowness with my broadband connection and my Internet service provider is SmartBro, a subsidiary of Smart Communications Inc. For three days, I dismissed the sudden status of my connection and did not bother to contact their customer support thinking that it may be just a routine maintenance thing. On the following days, I was getting frustrated for having to restart my connection almost every 10 or 15 minutes so finally I called their customer support and determined upon troubleshooting over the phone that my antenna is somehow not directed to their base station which come off as funny thinking that their people were the ones who installed it. I guess they made the notion when I mentioned I started having problems after two typhoons passed. With their diagnosis, they’ve sent their tech support (which is a contractor but different from the guys that installed my antenna) to correct the position of the antenna and they said that my antenna is pointing in the wrong direction which made me think what the $$%#^@$&& is going on?! But I suspect that they were just saying that and I think they configured me with a different base station, which I doubt because I am still using the same router address. But somehow they have corrected one of my two problems, my connection is now more stable hmmm… so maybe they really did something right this time.

In one of my “sessions” with their technical support representative where I tried so hard to be calm and respective (I was once a tech support a few years back and I know the feeling when you encounter irate callers and it’s not the tech supports fault in the first place), I asked them how I can monitor the speed of my so called “broadband” connection and they responded with three independent sites which comes as again really funny. I choose Smartbro instead of Digitel (that’s the only choices here in Iba, Zambales folks!) because of observations I made from Internet Café’s and the fact that I won’t be bothered for bills of a separate telephone line which Digitel requires, but man!.. How could some company like Smart cannot even produce a decent tool for measuring the speed of it’s broadband service while Globe has it’s own! Sigh… I think it’s nice to have a Globe Broadband provider around when you need one. So, regarding the speed test sites, here it is: www.testmy.net, www.2wire.com and www.speedtest.net. I am sure there is a lot of speed test sites out there, if you know one, tell me! But before, I was using the Globe speed test site, which I can no longer access and I believe more credible.

Being in the Quality Assurance work for quite some time (but not anymore, technically), I did a basic but strategic inspection scheme. I’ve measured using two of the speed test sites I mentioned at different times of the day and here are my findings. During the day when there are a lot of subscribers logged in (obviously), I get a speed that ranges from 33 kbps (as if I’m using dial-up connection!) up to 120 kbps that’s up to 7 PM. It improves usually after that… and I get to enjoy 300 kbps and up at 1 AM when everybody’s asleep! How convenient?

Well I signed up for 384 kbps… the 56 kbps of the late 90’s. Let me be clear on this one, I was not coerced by any competing telecoms provider in writing this… this is honest to goodness experience of a customer who got screwed! I just saw the Globe broadband ad the other night, they’re offering a speed of 512 kbps for what I am paying right now but it’s not yet available in my part of the world. I just hope when they decide to bring it here, all of present SmartBro subscribers consider switching. If that happens, then I might enjoy the 384 kbps as advertised all by myself and watch the other network slow down too.

But I am not mad about it really… this is the pitfall most ISP’s in the Philippines are in anyway. As I mentioned earlier, I was a tech support rep for what must have been the most successful ISP way back in 1998 when Internet connections are just up to 56 kbps, we encountered this kind of problem with speed and unluckily I was at the receiving end of angry customers who could bathe you in an instant if ever they were in front of you (personally). I have a feeling that telecom company’s big or small, will always play out the cheaper setup when it comes to provincial networks thinking we’re just farmers anyway. I don’t know if they ever build networks that are really capable in handling the total population of a community (in my case, a rural one) where they can very much estimate potential subscribers (or they may again have under estimated… again we’re just farmers).

I guess that’s how it’s going to be in the Philippines, they would advertise that their broadband speed is up to this speed but never really deliver most of the time. But in fairness, SmartBro ads quite did not promise they would deliver the speed they advertise, they use the phrase “up to ____ kbps” as a disclaimer. But it really sucks knowing you’re not getting what you paid for… where’s the justice in that?

PS… before I sleep last night, I again measured my broadband speed (as OC as I can be)… and it’s just 237.7 kbps!

Toy Soldiers…

When I was growing up in Zambales in the early 80’s, we used to play “baril-barilan” (war games) and the whole neighborhood is our battlefield. Uninhabited lots simulate jungle terrain, neighbors overhead water tank as over watch posts, mango trees as ambush positions, neighbors compound for urban close quarters combat, you name it. We don’t have air soft pistols and rifles back then but my friend has a replica of a Tommy Gun and an M1 Garand and the rest either a plastic pistol bought from the market or simply your index finger and your thumb making an L shape simulating a gun. You just know you’re hit when you hear “Bang! Bang!” or “Ratatatatat!” or the soft tone single shot “bang..” that’s only used when you are able to sneak close to your enemy. Of course it may sound silly now, but back in the low-tech days, honesty in claiming to be hit is the rule of the game. I like guns because of the complexity behind it, I prefer not to handle the real thing either fire one.

So we grew up and computer games like “Counterstrike” have replaced our childhood game. I haven’t really improved with counterstrike and I remember my brother giving me a lot of headshots every time we square off. Instead, I got addicted playing SOCOM: US Navy Seals on the Playstation 2 where you play the alpha team leader of a four man fire team divided into Alpha and Bravo. You can play it online like the fast paced Counterstrike or you can play it offline with set and bonus mission objectives. There’s a lot of weapons to chose from, heavy machine guns, sub machine guns, rifles, shotguns, grenades, body armor etc. and each has its own use for a specific situation/mission. With close quarters, you’ll need a high fire rate weapon such as a submachine gun. In jungle settings, take your pick among sniper rifles such as SR-25 where you can attach a silencer or an assault M4 rifle also with silencer, the menacing AK-47, deadly M16 and the sniper come semi automatic grand dad M14 and many others. The outcome of each mission depends on how you have selected your weapons load out and of course your team tactics.


The Philippine Marines recently had an encounter in Basilan where they’ve conducted rescue operations for the kidnapped Italian Priest, Fr. Bossi, who’s already been freed. As their transport got stucked in the mud on their way back to base, they came under fire allegedly from 400 to 500 men believed to be MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) members and Abu Sayyaf. There were 14 Marines killed, 10 of which were beheaded, considered as the worst defeat of the corps in many years.

Watching the actual footage of the firefight by a GMA-7 TV reporter who was with the marines, you could feel the confusion and the condition of our troops who were outnumbered 8 to 1. Ambushed, surrounded by almost a battalion of enemy combatants, it’s considered a feat that the marines were not decimated. In any combat situation, malfunctions, misfires, weapons jams are a given but when I saw the way mortar rounds misfire not just once or twice, government troops are at a loosing end. After the investigation conducted by AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), they found out that moisture might have affected the performance of munitions. They also recommended that storage of mortar rounds be changed from paper tubes to plastic containers that I think is expensive. Maybe if they place silicon desiccants inside each container, it might solve the problem with moisture? We have a history of copying everything American; I am wondering if our military cared to follow military quality standards set by the US?

I’ve watched a lot of war movies and there’s a lesson to be learned in watching these films. One of my favorites is “Black Hawk Down.” There is a scene in the movie where one soldier bragged that the operation would be finished quickly that he doesn’t have to wear body armor and so when things gets out of hand he died because of that mistake. Troops of other countries see the need of protecting their soldiers by making them wear body armor even on patrols/guard duty. Our soldiers have all the necessary training and tactics but as you would see on TV, they enter hostile territories with minimal or no body armor at all. Body armor will cost our government a lot if we are to give each and every soldier his own. I guess it wouldn’t hurt if only military personnel conducting special missions are given the needed protection. Body armor increases survivability of soldiers and even their morale and effectiveness in combat.

For the mean time, they have to do their job with what they have and when they break… they bleed… no special adhesive can put them back in one piece.