Baras Rizal Online

For more than two years now, I have always been dependent to Smart Broadband as my Internet service provider. Though I experienced some downtimes, I would say that service is generally “acceptable.”

But I’m on the verge of replacing Smart Bro. For one, they’re slow. I’m only getting an average of 48 KBps which is minuscule to the “up to 2 MBps” they’re promising. I have an officemate who lives in Makati, subscribed to the same P 999 plan, but is getting an average of 500 KBps. Maybe, Smart’s cellsite in Baras is not yet in 3G that’s why we are getting that slow connection. I wonder if we can appeal to the municipal government to ask Smart to make their cellsite built with 3G.

Second, our town, hopefully, will get an alternative through Globe Telecom. If you have seen men climbing up posts and laying out cables, they’re with Visatech, a contractor for Globe. They have installed a smart box in Baras Elementary School. I pray that installation will be fast so that we can see the quality of service they have in voice and data offerings they have. By the way, this company will also offer WiMax.

Also, I’m interested in getting the services of Sun Cellular. They’re offering this USB dongle thing that has an unlimited plan. I still have to checkout though if their cellsite, just like Smart, has 3G.

The above mentioned are all wireless services. I still believe, and experts have said, that nothing beats a fixed cable connection. Philippine Long Distance Telephone company offers a good deal with their DSL plans. The last time I checked with their office in Antipolo, only their affiliate Smart covers Baras for Internet connection. But I was advised to apply PLDT DSL anyway, as there may be other ways to install it.

Cheetah Broadband and Digitel’s DSL are already out of the question. I’ve heard horror stories with Cheetah where a subscriber was allowed to use only one computer for one connection, and that another computer means another cable connection, another cable modem and of course, another subscription fee. A neighbor also told me that he has a router and want to share the Cheetah connection. The two computer won’t get Internet service. The tech said that it might be a bad router so they bought a new one. Still, the two computers are connected but there was no data transfer. Perhaps their modem are not made for DHCP.

Digitel on the other hand offers DSL plans on top of their voice services. That means whenever their voice services are out, so is your Internet. For four months, we didn’t have a dial tone for our unlimited telephone plan. It was only restored this week and I don’t know how long it will last. Their phone also doesn’t accept dial up services offered by companies other than Digitel.

With computer technology being transferred from individual systems into cloud computing, fast and reliable Internet connection is no longer a luxury but a necessity. I wonder what other Barasenians use as their ISP.