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!