Utilities & Mobile Converge ISP

Just received a flyer from CONVERGE, offering:

50 MBPS 1250
200 MBPS 1500
Others
1 GBPS 7499 (i.e. 7500!)

plus:

Based on the 200 MBPS plan:
160 MBPS average speed
60 MBPS min speed
80% service reliability (whatever that actually means)

Early days, but has anyone any experience of this company?

 

I have friends in Bacolod whose ISP is Converge - they say it's the best and have great speed & reliability. We live quite remote but within 100m of a Globe tower, which is supplied by Converge - though they have no immediate intention to extend the service to domestic. Personally I'm going with Starlink which is meant to arrive on Tuesday (coverage of Philippines commenced 22nd February I'm told). Watch this space.

 

My contract with another (but useless) ISP ends later this year and I will give Converge a go - everything I have heard so far seems encouraging. The other ISPs may learn that if you don't treat your customers well, you end up with no customers.

 

Is Starlink direct equipment from Satrlink and you do the install yourself or is it a third party Datalake or one of the local groups signed up with Starlink?

Also what are your costs, startup equipment and /month?

And are the plans capped? Not speed but downloads? The Yumitech articles mention DL caps on enterprise plans which would be worrying.

Also would be great to know how good the service is here as the array of satellites is not that big here yet. Rain, cloud and storm signal fade for UL transmitted data would be interested to know how that effects the end user experience.

Great that your an early adopter and if it's positive feedback there might be many people who move across.

I was wondering if it's actually a good thing for the Philippines. If upper class people in remotes areas can afford Starlink does that slpow or stop later remote fiber rollouts that people on budgets get access to? Or does it improve these areas if the local government can have Starlink hubs in remote Barangays and feed out to people who would be years away from seeing decent connections. I hope it's the later.

 

I would hope the latter also. As you know one of the problems here is the lack of competition and resulting lack of customer support. It seems Converge have already addressed the customer relations hurdle but only time will tell. I think Starlink, in the longer term, will significantly reduce in cost (or at least not rise as quickly as others) once the development costs are recovered - and customer support is provided from outside of the Philippines. IMO if, as you suggest, the local Barangays get involved then the system is doomed to become inundated with bureaucracy and even more prohibitively expensive - ppl & pieces of pie syndrome.

Update: The kit was meant to arrive tomorrow (7th) but has been delayed in Cebu customs for over a week (arrived Cebu 26th Feb).

I'll keep you updated

 

Update on Starlink:
Kit finally arrived after numerous customs & courier delays in Cebu.

Temporarily installed on a breadboard on the roof ridgeline - set up time around 15 mins (all done through the app). All seems to be working OK but will give it a day or so then either make a permanent fixture, or move it.

Link speed 192 Mbps, Wifi speed of 76 Mbps (should improve when I relocate the router)

One seriously happy chappie!

 

Further update:

I've now relocated the router and allowed the system to stabilise - Link speed of 260 Mbps & Wifi speed of 215 Mbps. 6 devices logged on - Netflix & Amazon Prime are instant, no delay in loading, no lag, no buffering. We'll see what the service is like in a downpour.

 

The system has now been "live" for 24 hours and the stats tell me a downtime of 19s (probably lost the sat coverage so should improve). Speed test link speed consistently above 600 Mbps and Wifi speed of 215 Mbps. I have a couple of blindspots in the property due to the faraday cage effect (rebar in all the walls) so I'll probably add a mesh in due course. The router has no facility for ethernet and the RJ45 connector is an add-on. All the add-ons are available from Starlink but are a little pricey. One piece of advice for anyone considering this system - At the moment a VPN cannot be installed on the router so you would need to protect all devices individually - I use ExpressVPN and it works fine.

 

Excellent updates on your Starlink.
There is also a mesh modem available from Starlink for extending their Wifi network, I think people go for these instead of ethernet to a separate 3rd party device as they play nicely in the app and give a bunch of tips and tricks to maximise its install.

 

For Starlink (prospective) customers it might be good to read this article.
https://www.xda-developers.com/starlink-internet-rural-savior-unreliable-luxury/
It describes the experiences of Starlink customers in rural parts of the USA. I'm not saying that will necessarily be replicated here, but if/when Starlink 's capacity will get strained here as it apparently is there, I would certainly expect similar consequences in terms of service level and pricing.