Best Posts in Thread: LTE or Wired

Hi to everyone,

Well it ended up being Globe LTE after all. No wired out here.

Following items just make you smile:-

1) Sorry Sir - we can only give you the 3mb/s plan @ 1299. You are too far from the tower. I can see the f****ing thing from here.
Tested it - speeds were bouncing a little but better than what I expected. So I bypassed Dumaguete Globe and rang Manila and changed my plan to 5mb/s.
Now I have 5mb/s with 50gig data / month, which is what I really wanted. Bloody Amateurs.

2) Sorry Installers (Technicians - hahahaa) - you will NOT mount that antenna on my brand new roof. Here mount it on the GBH fence (not too high - don't want a lightning rod here) and we'll run the cable here, down the wall and through the wall here. What do you mean you have no drills for brick, what do you mean you have no bolts for the bricks, only rivets for the roof. What do you mean you have no conduit to run the cable through to keep it tidy and safe. So they
were told to come back in the afternoon - bring bigger drills and brick fixings. The antenna is now mounted on top of the fence, fixed with 2 little 3/16 screws, and tied to the rebars still sticking out of the fence (soon to be cut) with chicken wire. Told them to leave the bloody antenna and I'll mount it properly.

3) That will be 1200php sir. Lucky my wife was holding me back. And then the cheeky SOB demanded another 300php for "activation".
He did not like my comment and phone call to Manila. He left the site pretty promptly after that.

Anyways now I am alive and will carry out some tweaking and see how I can push this connection.

 

I have prepaid on my cell. It's LTE capable, but not dual. So, I have a pocket wifi with Globe LTE and Smart LTE on my phone.

The Globe connection had been rock solid, more so than any wired connection, up until a couple weeks ago. I then added Smart to the mix.

I don't know that anyone can give you a thumbs up or down for internet because the experience is probably dependent on "last mile" issues.

In some areas, I get LTE. In other areas, 3G. I have different issues with each provider. Getting both seems to be the best option. Lately I have been using both connections depending on my situation and where I'm located (sometimes I'm "pretending" to be working from a bar or restaurant.)

I don't understand the plans. In the U.S. and Australia, mobile data is expensive. Both Globe and Smart have an "unlimited" prepaid daily option for 50 pesos which is capped at 800 MB. The 999 peso unlimited monthly plan for Globe is supposedly capped at something like 3 or 5 GB, I don't remember which. Doing the math, you're better off renewing daily. For large downloads, it may even make sense to have another SIM to run on the 5 pesos / 15 minutes rate.

One of the benefits of prepaid is that I can buy load for it from anywhere and I don't have to get on a contract.

All the above may end up being more expensive, but internet is my lifeline. Its value to me is far higher than what I'm paying.

The last time I had postpaid connection installed (probably Wimax rather than LTE) - the installers were contractors. They probably get paid by Globe / Smart and then make extra for whatever else they can squeeze out of you. They probably have an incentive to install an antenna for every connection.

When the installers setup my connection, they had a hard time getting a signal. They charged 1K+ extra to extend the antenna. I had no choice. It was either I get a good connection or I start packing my bags. The connection worked great for X months and then wet to crap. I fixed the problem by unplugging the antenna, which forced the modem to switch to internal antenna.

The installers insisted on using the CD to setup the configuration even though I told them that I was using a Linux system. I did have another system which was Windows though, and I gave them a lesson on how to do the configuration without using the CD.

You can't give one review to cover all cases. Some people working for the company know their stuff. Some don't. Some locations deal with issues like being overloaded, weak signals, etc and some don't.

I think it's best to load up with as many options as you can and then use the one which works the best at the time.