Reliable, affordable internet access in Dumaguete

Hello,
I know there are many post about the internet access in Dumaguete. But like always each situation is different. I did not find one which really fits my needs so I decided to start this threat.

Soon I will move over to Dumaguete (near Bantayan). As of now I have an internet access here in Siquijor with SmartBro. It comes via antenna (Canopy) and with a flat rate which means I have an unlimited access. Of course the speed differs over the day and normally we did not reach the speed of 2 Mbps which was offered with the plan. But anyway it works quite ok and with using some helpful tools like special download software we could live with it.

But of course it would be very good to have a better access and so I am looking forward to Dumaguete. The problem is I do not know which provider will be the best. They all offer so many different plans. It is not very easy to find the right one. If you ask at the office of course they tell you stories about a very good and reliable access.

But my experiences with SmartBro over more than 12 years is another story. So I will not believe all these promises and it would be better to get some information from the users.

I found the FUN PLAN 999 with PLDT Home which comes with up to 5 Mbps
at 50 GB Monthly Volume. This sounds quite ok. But my concern is this limitation of 50 GB monthly.

As of now I use nearly 1.5 GB a day which will be already 45 GB a month. I thing this is not very much and a normal situation these days. I download a news video and one or two movies a day. Also some music, drivers and interesting homepages.

I am making webpages so I use ftp to down- and upload the files. Mostly pictures which could reach some amount of data.

Than of course you have Skype, Facebook and other social media which needs some data consumption.

Than you will have all the updates of app's, anti-virus and spyware applications and so on.

And with Windows 10 and all these cumulative updates which can be very big the situation will not become any better.

And with a faster internet access you will of course watch a little bit more YouTube videos or Instagram images.

So does anybody knows about something better than the Fun Plan 999?
May be a plan with a flat rate?

It should not be much more than 1200 - 1400 Php a month. And of course the provider should be reliable. The speed should be at least something around 5 Mbps an average.

I need a WiFi at home for all my mobile devices like tablet and mobile phones and the possibility to connect my desktop via LAN cable.

As of now I use a router for that.

I am looking forward to any ideas which are helpful.
Thank you very much.

 

Well, you already know where you are moving. My best suggestion since I don't live in (near) Bantayan is that after you move, ask some neighbors what works best. Ask a lot of people, because some people will tell you that what they have is the best, simply because that is what they have.

 

First off we appreciate when ask for suggestions you don't do it with a threat

Far as what is best it depends on your full usage and while you mentioned so things that add size I didn't see anything major consuming on data such as downloading movies or downloading big software packages. 50 gigs may be enough for you if you don't do that.

First rule is only aim for something with a wired connection as those will always do better. I was a big PLDT fan as far as DSL as they were fairly solid on speed and ping for my specific needs. Currently I'm using a Globe business line because I also have a business next to my house which has been great and doesn't have the caps like you get on residential Globe and PLDT plans now. If you want to avoid caps you'd want to check with SkyCable and FilProducts. I never had much luck with SkyCable but last I saw they still had the 2 week free trial which if you cancel within that period you get your deposit back and no bill so nothing really lost. Fil Products doesn't have that but I found them decent as far as internet goes here. I however am not sure if either of them still are offering *unlimited*. Don't forget to ask about FUP's as well (Fair Usage Policies) which both Globe and PLDT have as well which can throttle you if you use more then 1 gig a day of bandwidth.

So in the end my suggestion is PLDT DSL or FilProducts (depending on if you want the cap or not) and 2nd round choices SkyCable then Globe DSL. With PLDT and Globe though if you get the cheap 999p packages they really kind of stick it to you versus those with better packages as they want you to upgrade. Globe and PLDT DSL's will be higher speeds offered for the same price (except caps) while SkyCable and Fil Products lower speed (3Mbps probably still) but unlimited (assuming they didn't change to caps also).

Rule of thumb, before you sign any contract and/or move in to a place always make sure you go to the internet providers office you want and actually confirm they offer the type of internet you want such as PLDT DSL fixed line (not Smart Bro or wireless crap) and same for Globe.

 

Hi ChMacQueen,
many thanks for your suggestions. One remark:
What do you mean when you wrote

I heard about that FUP. But I did not get round to it. I mean if I have a plan which will offer me 50 gig a month and if I divide this by 30 days than I end up with something around 1.6 gig. Why should they throttle me if I use only the amount of bandwidth which is given to me with the plan? If they do so what does it mean when they told about 50 gig a month? May be I did not understand this in the right way.

 

This is the Philippines, it doesn't have to make sense. Your not cut off at 1 gig but they may throttle you if you go pass their FUP but it also isn't guaranteed to happen but more likely during peak times. To me FUP means "F***ed Up Policy". The same FUP applies to higher bandwidth and monthly allotment packages also. I take it as a safety net for them to be able to throttle you if you go pass it and their network is heavily congested at that time.

So just remember to get them to spell out the FUP policy and question it specifically. They will also try usually to say they don't control it and its law which is a load of BS.

 

First of all, if they really deliver 50GB/month at 5Mbps for 1000 Pesos with a reliable connection I'd call that a decent package. You won't find much better elsewhere at that price. Maybe they can install it twice giving you 100GB for 2k Pesos? If you really constantly consume that much it's still a good price.

Regarding the FUPs - in my experience these only apply to the so-called flat rates, to prevent 'power users' (read: movie pirates) using up the (always limited) total available bandwidth and thus degrading the overall experience for everybody else.

Personally I like that - at least they _try_ to maintain some quality of service (without much success obviously but imagine what it would be like without such caps). However if you pay for a certain amount of data like 50GB/month I'd expect them to not cap your daily usage but leave it up to you how and when you use that up. The only unknown in a provider's calculation are the flat rates - once the number of people having bittorrent etc going 24/7 reaches a certain treshold putting on some brakes is the only solution if they want to stay in business.

Of course it might still be the case that they throttle clients even if they are just trying to use their paid-for volume - but maybe it just appears they throttle you but in reality there is just generally heavy usage beyond the provider's network.

 

5Mbps 50Gb a month.... decent deal? Look at the surrounding countries. Singapore you can get a 1Gbps with a 1,000Gb a month plan for 50SGD (1700 peso's). In Hong Kong you can get 1Gbps for $26 (1200 peso's) or a 100Mbps plan for 600 peso's. However you cut it the Philippines is extremely pathetic compared to other countries nearby. No way to even try and argue that internet in the Philippines is halfway reasonable. 1k peso's a month or roughly $20. That is what I was paying for a 56k (really 52k) modem line back in the ancient days.

In regards to FUP's its not just about hitting super users or those doing massive torrents. It hits plenty of regular folks to so hard in anyplace else it would be insane. I'm a gamer and a single game I may buy on Steam could be 20-30Gb and I have even recently purchased a game. On my business line (have a business right next to my house) that is a 7Mbps line and a 10Gb a day FUP (business remember) I get around 7Gbps downloaded on a 32Gb game and it slows down to an utter crawl doing 5-10kbps a sec. Am I some super user running torrents and pirating? Nope. I'm downloading legitimate products I bought on a major site all over the world. It ends up taking me 3 days to download it with a couple modem restarts a day.

 

I think it's at this time among the better deals you can get on an island in the Philippines that's far away from the NCR. There's nothing comparable to Singapore here except the weather, so I don't even think about comparing internet speeds with places like that. In Hong Kong I get 30MBit/s on my phone for the same price, but probably couldn't afford staying there for good, so what to do...

Of course it's depressing but on the other hand games transferring such ridiculous amounts of data obviously aren't made with third world countries in mind. Still with three days for getting your 30GB you are well off - here in Dauin I'm grateful if the canopy connection is up at all and I stopped thinking about trying to download the occasional movie. Instead I do that via LTE and prepaid data when in dumaguete...

What's the price of that business connection btw - maybe it's worth opening up a business just for the sake of getting that?