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Smart Bro Broadband any experience?

Discussion in '☋ General Chat ☋' started by John, Jul 10, 2007.

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  1. John

    John DI Junior Member

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    Hi all,

    Does anyone have Smart Wireless Broadband, if so is it any good? My wife chat's to friends and family in the Phils with phone cards that are good value and decent service but basically VOIP.

    We were thinking that we could save the money spent on cards in the UK and spend it on Smart Broadband (the only service available at present as not in ADSL area) and use Skype/similar to call instead, sounds too good to be true...

    Any help much appreciated,
    John.
     
  2. Marky

    Marky DI Member

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    It works but its slow from what I've heard.
     
  3. averatec3200

    averatec3200 DI Junior Member

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    I've tried using it, and its generally fair. You could do VOIP with not much latency compared to a dial-up connection. Although, it could be a bit slow if your using both voice and video.

    The connection I got ranges from 300-350 kbps, with a bit higher during night time.
     
  4. OP
    OP
    John

    John DI Junior Member

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    Thanks for the info, any ideas about performance in bad weather and position of dish. Prospective house is not overshadowed by too many trees, but is also not in a field...
     
  5. haisha421

    haisha421 One Hit Wonder?

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    Smart Bro Experience

    Hello John. I was scanning through feedbacks of this wireless connection and saw your inquiry. I'll be relating quite a long story about my RECENT personal experience on Smart Bro, then I will let you decide if you should still avail of the service.
    I am from Cebu and I have been subscribing with PLDT-myDSL since December 2005. All has been well and good until recently where my connection just kept messing up for 3 weeks. I called for tech support and in fairness to them, they were very helpful. Unfortunately that time, the site in my place was busted, thus the frequent loss of connection. I got frustrated and resigned to the idea of switching to Smart Bro. Their advertising group is amazing. You'll be so tempted to get hooked up. But prior to signing up for an application, I made sure that the staff assure me that signal in my place was satisfactory and that I can make VoIp calls as well as Skype calls. I work as an online English teacher (home-based) and it is very important that my students hear me crystal clear. The staff as well as their installation contractors all assured me of the same voice quality as having a cable connection.
    August 8, 2007: Smart Bro was installed in my house. I was forced to buy and extra pipe/tubing for the antenna because they couldn't acquire signal. They said the company will only provide one pipe per subscriber. They said if I want to get a very good signal, then I have to buy the pipe. Desperate to have a new internet service provider, I then obliged to buy the said tubing. I got the thing tested after the installation. Surfing speed was good (because I have 2 GB of RAM). Then came the dilemma. When my online class started, I was cursing Smart Bro silently. My student could not hear me at all. To cut the story short, I checked my bandwidth reading online (www.2wire.com). I went ballistic when i knew i was only getting 200 Kbps!!! it wasn't even the minimum speed of what they ARE trying to advertise. It was so slow and as far as I can remember, my dial-up connection 3 years ago was better! The thing is, it's wireless, so our connection depends on how close you are to their satellite. I had no choice but to stop my subscription. Now here's the catch. They wouldn't have allowed me to stop my subscription because the contract says that once it is being installed and you decide to stop it(in less than a year), then you have to pay up for the remaining months of their Monthly Service fee. In the event, i consulted a lawyer and rendered the company a letter of complaint stating that the fault lies within their company because I was being deceived as to what the company has been advertising...Luckily, my complaint was acknowledged and heard of. I'm back to my old DSL now.

    Whew...anyways, I apologize for the litany. But I do hope you'll think it over.
     
  6. coolbuster

    coolbuster One Hit Wonder?

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    hello there john.

    there is a lot of subscribers complaining about the low speed they got from smart bro. one downside with smart bro is that it is wi-fi which has intermittent speed.

    however, if you happen to have smart bro installed in your home then i suggest you visit this link to help you speed up your internet connection. here it is:

    20 Steps to Make SmartBro Faster

    before optimizing smart bro, i only got 200 kbps for downloads, 120 kbps for streaming and 60 kbps with uploads which are far from the advertised speed of up to 384 kbps per connection.

    now i can get as much as 670 kbps max speed - almost twice the advertised speed. do check it out.

    i hope this helps.
     
  7. shadow

    shadow DI Forum Luminary

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    We have been using Smartbro for over a year, and are quite pleased with it. It may not be as fast as hardwired DSL, but it is twice as fast as any dialup connection I've had anywhere I've lived in the world.

    Your mileage may vary.

    Larry.
     
  8. atlargex

    atlargex DI Forum Adept

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    You can also check your bandwidth on this site....

    http://speedtest.arrival.net/speedtest.swf

    but chance are you'll get a different reading with different test site....depending on the location of each test site.
     
  9. Timn8ter

    Timn8ter DI Forum Adept

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    haisha421

    Are you checking your upload speed as well? It just seems to me that if you're teaching an on-line class you need more upload bandwidth than the typical Internet surfer.
     
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