SMART BRO Venting
@joyadalia (1408)
Philippines
August 12, 2008 6:53pm CST
Is anyone here using SMART BRO prepaid broadband connection? I absolutely do not recommend it to those who haven't tried it yet. I live in Dumaguete City. Our house is only about 5 kilometers from the center of this city and a smart tower is about 1 kilometer and yet the internet connection speed is absolutely very slow: less than 1kbps! No matter how hard we try to find better signal by placing the unit outside of the house, the signal is still really slow. It is so slow that I cannot open my yahoomail; gmail can be opened but it takes forever and only the beta version can load but still with errors. Mylot will load after 30 minutes and I don't bother answering discussion because when I post the response the connection would be gone and all the hard work I did typing the response will go in vain.
And then it crashed on me. I just bought it last July 20 and cared for it well and followed all instructions carefully. It can't connect to the internet even on a full GPRS or EDGE or even 3G signal. Each time I type a web page on the address bar the server would redirect the connection to the Smart website and what would I do with that web site? I can't even do a decent search there.
Smart has done a really lousy job on this broadband connection.
1 person likes this
7 responses
@lilyoungfella (1196)
• Philippines
13 Aug 08
I think he refers to that small prepaid broadband kit which got so many internet connection issues.
1 person likes this
@kayedanda (1850)
• Philippines
14 Aug 08
so far my smartbro connection is good, since we are in direct line of sight. however, since this is baguio, the fogs mess up with the signals once in a while, but otherwise, no problems (yet. hee hee)
1 person likes this
@polaris714 (607)
• Philippines
19 Nov 08
This discussion was really enlightening. I wanted to buy the prepaid Smart Bro or Globe Visibility so I have been asking around if anybody has any experience with either but so far everybody seems to have availed of the postpaid ones. So here, finally I get the firsthand user information I have been looking for. And its not really encouraging. I went to Globe, but was forewarned by the Customer Representative herself that if there is no GPRS signal in my place then Globe Visibility won't work. When I went to Smart I was only told that they had run out of stocks.
I wonder what's a possible alternative? I need a prepaid one as much as possible because I spend very little of my waking hours at home; I am mostly at home or at school or elsewhere so I wouldn't be able to maximize those P799 per month deals. I mean, I can't take them with me where I need them. Does anybody have a suggestion?
@intimate36 (1415)
• Pakistan
13 Aug 08
So ,it is really hard time for you...Hope , you find a solution for it soon....
@joyadalia (1408)
• Philippines
14 Aug 08
I found a solution but it is still very slow. It's around 20 kbps only, and fluctuating.
@trishasantos (1297)
• Philippines
13 Aug 08
Thank you so much for the information. I thought of buying one but now, with your information and experience with it, I wont buy one anymore. I use Smart Bro here at home, the direct connection though. I thought of buying one, which I can use outside. Thanks to you, I wont bother buying one now.
@joyadalia (1408)
• Philippines
13 Aug 08
Yes, maybe you should try asking around in your place if the signal is alright. ;O)
@CaptAlbertWhisker (32746)
• Calgary, Alberta
19 Jan 16
Years later, Their service is still terrible. I am saving up some money now so I can get a better service. I live on a city, Why my connection have the speed of a turtle.
@makmakL58 (52)
• Philippines
18 Nov 08
you've mentioned that you are 1 km away from a smart tower, and 5km from the city, i am 99% sure you have no 3G/HSDPA signal in your area. You only have GPRS connection available (54kbps max speed) and since you're 1 km away from the tower, chances are you can't use at most 50% of the GPRS signal. Thus, you're experiencing SMART BROken connection. If you plan to switch to Globe visibility, make sure you check if there's a good Globe 3G signal otherwise, you'll experience the same thing.
