Smart Bro or Bro(ken)

What is Smart Bro? it's actually an upgrade of one of the first wireless internet here in the Philippines formerly known as Smart wifi. During that time there were a lot of complaints about the speed because it was just 2 times faster than dial up, you get connections of up to 128 kbps and for as low as 799 pesos a month and 256 kbps for 899 pesos a month. so smart came up with a new name for it which is now called Smart Bro, for only 999 pesos a month or about $20 dollars a month they now offer speeds up to 384 kbps or 7 times faster than dial up. The wireless service of smart bro uses a Motorola canopy antenna that is supplied upon application to the service. below is a photo of the Canopy that I'm using right now.

for you to be able to avail of the service you should be at least be in the 1 km. radius limit and in the line of site of their cell site. But according to the technician who installed this canopy, the canopy's maximum reach is up to 4 kilometers. Below is a view of their cell site here in our place, and we are just one house away from this cell site.

to show you how close my antenna is to their cell site, look at the photo below. My estimate on the distance is just about 30 to 40 meters.

considering the fact that I live near their cell site, I thought I wouldn't have any problems at all with my internet connection. But I was wrong, I still experience problems, and worst they're not doing anything about my complaints. Well my problem is with my upload speed, I can't even send an e-mail. don't have any problems with the download speed because I can still download files even during peak hours. So I called up their customer service to report my concern and they gave me a service reference number so I can follow up my concern after 24 hours. Sad thing is that I have called them for the last 4 days to follow up my problems with my connection, still nothing happened I still can't send e-mails because of my slow upload speed. To show you my upload speed here's the speed test result I got from speedtest.net:

Well...... one of their customer service representatives admitted that they are now having problems with their network, but the rest of them just kept on saying that theirs no problem with my connection because I'm getting a good download speed. I'm not asking for a very fast connection, I just want to be able to send e-mails and at least be able to do research. I think I deserve a better service. I have been paying on time, I pay my bills online to make sure I pay on time. It's really unfair and I think they are not really committed to the speed that they are advertising. If only there were phone lines in our area I would shift to a wired DSL rather than going for the wireless service of Smart.

Wired or Wifi

A Linksys WRT54G WiFi router with 4 wired lan ports





Computer network is the connection of computers with several computers in a work group, enabling sharing with each computer helps users to easily copy files needed from other PC's without the need to copy with the use of diskettes, recordable discs and other methods of copying files directly from a PC where files are stored. Local area network is an advantage indeed, but for security reasons it is not advisable to share the whole hard disk drive.

Wired networking is still so far the fastest network available, with speeds up to 100 mbps or even higher for the latest LAN cards. Basing on my experience its still is more reliable and a lot cheaper than going wireless.

Wifi networking is a wireless network. You need to have a wifi device for your PC to make this work. Like in my case I'm using a correga WiFi USB dongle for my notebook computer because my laptop has no built in wifi, I also installed a Linksys PCI wifi for my desktop PC and to easily make a wireless network work I also acquired a Linksys wifi router WRT54G.

I'm currently of a subscriber of a wifi DSL here in our country, sometimes its fast sometimes its slower than a dial-up internet connection. Well I could have subscribed in a wired DSL if only phone lines or cable lines are available in our place. I had no choice but to go wireless for both internet and cable.

Wireless network is good it gives you connection with out the hassle of fixing wires in place like wired LAN. WiFi network is limited and can have poor signals between concrete walls, due mainly because it is in the UHF frequencies. Wifi network can sometimes give you a very good signal within 40 meters beyond this will give you a poor or fair signal.

I'm still using a Wifi network at home, anyway the wifi router can give you a speed transfer of up to 56 mbps and my DSL connection is only at 384 kbps so there is not much problem with the internet access anyway, only the speed of transfer of files from my notebook to my desktop computer is slower and takes about 10 to 20 minutes to transfer 1 gb files.