Utilities & Mobile Best Posts in Thread: Fil Products, Globe or ??

Just an update. I signed up with Fil-Products. Signed up last Monday and they installed on Wednesday. The Fil-Products internet is fibre and I confirmed that they get it from 3 sources, one of which is PLDT. Yes the 10 mbps is much less than the 50 I had with PLDT but so far my real world experience is pretty good. While I am not a big TV person, the TV package was good with a number of what would have been premium movie channels back in the US.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but we have no choice. You can select either Globe or PLDT and I don't see them creating enough competition to consider internet accessibility in the Philippines as not controlled by a monopoly.

All of the submarine cables which come into the Philippines are owned at least in part by one of the two above mentioned companies. The only way to get around this limitation is to get satellite, which isn't an option most here will consider.

These cables generally don't have problems. Probably we don't have problems all the way up to Dumaguete. It's when you get closer to your house that **it starts breaking down. So, when you are asking about internet, you are really asking "what's the best last mile provider to my house?"

For example, I believe that Airlinks just gets a load of bandwidth from either Globe or PLDT and banks on providing a better experience for that last mile. You buy their equipment, they provide you an IP address and they route your connection through their equipment.

The last mile experience is different for each location. Contact Globe and PLDT to see if they are in your area. Use your phone or get a pocket wifi device as a back-up. With a dual open-line pocket wifi device (or a phone and a pocket wifi device) you could have a total of 3 different possible connections coming into your house.

 

As far as I am aware Fil-Products are supplied by PLDT. I have the Fil-Products Cable 6Mbps Plan and I am happy with it for the most. Occasionally it may slow down, but as I have stated here previously, I can line up Torrents before I go to bed and wake up to 30+ Movies in my Download Folder which gives me plenty of viewing pleasure. You can also get Fibre-Optic in certain areas with Fil-Products if you require faster speeds for streaming. I have the Internet/TV Package which is I think 2200php for the Internet and 400php for PayTV.

 

Your wrong on the problem being the last mile issue unless your living someone out where you need an antenna signal possibly. The issue is the cable submarine cable lines coming in. They are adequete but not great but the thing is the internet services oversell and reserve large portions of them for high end clients such as call centers in Manila and other major Manila business's paying for special lines. We get access to a small percent. The internet companies leasing lines as well don't buy enough bandwidth for primetime because during primetime (4pm-10pm about and Saturday) they would need 3x the bandwidth to provide fully what they actually sell to us regular folks. That is quite a bit more expense on them while they want as big of profits as possible.

To see its the last mile you can always go old school and run a traceroute and selecting an IP or web address for a server not in the Philippines. Up until the point it leaves the Philippines it will be at 20ms or pretty fast but as soon as it makes that first jump even to HK, Singapore, Taiwan, or other closer destinations the ms will jump to 150ms+. Jump to Taiwan takes up from 20ms range to 170ms range and over 30 hops as soon as it leaves the local pldt line in the Philippines.