The Four-eyed Journal » Telecoms

SMART Unveils T.G.I.Freeday - 18 and Up still raise some questions

jhay — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:00:22 +0000

The cat is out of the bag, so to speak as SMART has finally ended the weeks of speculation caused by their wildly bewildered smiley ads we’ve been spotting all over Facebook and blogs.

Since the day that ad came out, SMART has been giving out clues to up the ante through their Facebook page.

July16: “Guys and girls, something BIG and FREE is coming your way. Pero *secret* muna. 18 and up lang po ”

July 16: Link to Mobile Internet How-to

July 19: HAPPY MONDAY EVERYONE! Marami ang nagtatanong kung bakit SECRET ang “BIG and FREE”? Don’t worry, we’ll be giving clues!

July 21: It’s Wednesday HUMP DAY! And you know what that means right? Malapit na ang Friday! [the heck?? HUMP day??!? no i don't know what that is!!]

July 22: Some caller ringback ad

July 23: “Here’s the 1st clue about what’s up next Friday, July 30: It’s not a new endorser ”

July 25: “In case you haven’t heard, did you know you can win up to P5Million weekly with TST? ^__^ Check it out now! TST promo on Facebook”

July 26: “Good morning! Here’s Clue#2: d~ xIA JeJEMON~ p0wH. In fact, “SOCIAL” ito!”

July 26: “Its the end of another Monday, and time for Clue #3: It’s not TST (Tutok Sabay Text). You guys already heard about that ”

July 26: “We’re beating the gloomy Tuesday morning with Clue # 4 about something “big and free” this July 30: It will make your Friday fun, wherever you are! ”

July 27: Something about their TST promo again

All these clues had people guessing as to what SMART was up to. Could it mean free credits, an iPhone giveway, some grand party? Plus the “18 and Up” made things a bit more complicated as speculations soon led to something that would need some discretion.

Alas, all of this had been put to rest as SMART has just unveiled their newest promo:

T.G.I.Free-day

UPDATE

(with clarifications from SMART)

What does T.G.I.Free-day mean? Free mobile Internet ~~on Fridays~~ this Friday only, July 30, 2010. Smart will let their subscribers “tweet, poke, post, plurk, surf, google, yahoo, uzzap, gomail, B.B.M., and more!” to their heart’s content for FREE ~~every Friday~~ the whole 24 hours of this Friday only. There’s not even a need to hunt for the elusive hotspots to go online using our phones. All Smart subscribers with decent connection in their area (be it on a beachfront, an office basement, a school rooftop, wherever) can access Facebook and Twitter etc to their heart’s desires, ~~every Friday~~, even without a laptop or computer..!!! Just the mobile phone. Prepaid or not. How awesome is that?

In availing of this Free mobile Internet on ~~Fridays~~ this Friday only, July 30, 2010, the following must be kept in mind:

You need at least one peso maintaining balance if you’re a Prepaid subscriber
Weekly and monthly packages can still be purchased during T.G.I.Free-day but will not have extra days of validity
Availment of daily packages will not be allowed on T.G.I.Free-day. Best experienced with 3G, HSPA, HSDPA network.

Of course, if you have more questions, you can read more details here.

Now I’m sure SMART users would celebrate with this great new offer, heck, it might even entice others to switch over from their current networks.

One last thing though, that “18 and Up” is still raising some questions. Could it mean SMART has something else up its sleeve?

SMART is up to something Big, Free for 18+ only?

jhay — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:19:48 +0000

Aside from being old enough to become a father, the other thing that I’m happy about being above 18 years old is the freedom to enjoy my full legal rights: buy liquor, p0rn, watch movies rated 18 and above and vote.

Aside from those, it also makes me eligible for certain promos, events and whatnots that companies reserve for those in the age of majority, like what SMART is scheming to do.

Saw this Facebook page of theirs and I’m telling you, they’re up to something:

They say that they’re cooking up something BIG and FREE, but for those aged 18 years and above. What the heck could it be?

Most of those who commented on the FB page suspect they’re going to open an adult wapsite. Or they could be giving away tons of free beer? Or they’re going to launch a mobile social networking site for 18 and above only because you can practically do anything on it, post your deep dark secrets, the photos or videos you’d wish were never taken or buy and sell stuff. Your guess is as good as mine.

For now it’s a big secret. I suggest keeping an eye on that Facebook page as it will be the place where they’d spill it all out.

Better services and not just faster broadband speeds

jhay — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:21:18 +0000

The good news is that Globe is moving together with other telecommunication companies in Southeast Asia to lay down a fiberoptic cable that would connect the region with Japan which in effect would add 30 Gbps to our country’s current total bandwidth capacity of 21 Gbps.

Well and good. I would not dwell on the sentiments shared by fellow Filipinos on Facebook, which I share with them, that internet speeds in the country are still decades behind compared to speeds enjoyed in our Southeast Asian neighbors, instead I’d like to shed light on another aspect of broadband internet which I feel is the twin brother of faster connection speeds.

That my friends and readers would be the quality of services offered by telecommunication firms here in the Philippines. Assuming perhaps that internet speeds were upgraded to be on par with that of our neighboring countries in SE Asia, say the entry subscription speeds would be around 10mbps, that speed would be all for naught if the service gets regularly plagued with problems like intermittent connections, slow technical support response and predatory billing practices.

We all know this, a quick downpour of rain be it in parts of Metro Manila or in the provinces, the chances of connections being intermittent or completely lost are high because the local telcos have yet to upgrade their local lines and facilities which are already decades old.

They keep on harping that more and more Filipinos are signing up for broadband services but the pace in keeping their services and facilities to meet the growing demand is still dismally slow.

Take my experience last June of 2008 wherein I requested for an upgrade of my Globe Broadband connection speed. It was rejected because their facilities in Cavite have reached their full capacity and there’s no word yet on when would new capacity would be installed.

Adding insult to injury, my account has been assigned to a faulty port in their local hub or “cabinet” (of switches and ports) which is the reason why for every two months, my connection would become intermittent. And no matter how many technicians they send over to have a look at it, they could not remedy the problem because the problem lies with their facility itself which requires an upgrade they have yet to decide on when to carry out.

The problem is not just with Globe Telecom. Last September 2008, my aunt wanted to avail of a land line service from PLDT for her own use. Unfortunately, PLDT’s local facilities were also filled to their capacity and so she had to look for another telco just to get a land line service.

Besides their problematic physical facilities, we consumers have to suffer from their predatory or erroneous billing systems and practices as experienced first hand by Ms Noemi and we all know that she is not the only one who has had the same problem.

This is why I find it strange that telcos are so eager to invest money in upgrading their connection speeds when what we consumers really need is a reliable and fair land line and internet broadband service. There’s only so much we could do with super fast internet connections but, as I’ve said earlier, if such connections are unreliable, cause more stress and burn holes in our wallets then its rubbish! Telcos don’t deserve our hard-earned money and they don’t have the right to crown themselves the best or most popular service provider in the country.

So we might welcome the upgrade in bandwidth and connection speeds, such upgrade must also be done to their services and physical facilities because we’re paying for it and we have every right to have it.

Globe doubles Internet Bandwidth – Have connections improved?

jhay — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:51:16 +0000

Last Tuesday, Yuga blogged about Globe Telecom’s new cable system which is a joint project with Tata Communications called Tata Global Network – Intra Asia (TGN-IA). The new cable system now connects Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Japan to the Philippines and will offer a total capacity of 3.84 Terabits per second.

It’s a good thing that it has been laid around areas not prone to earthquakes, remember the Taiwan quake of 2006 which practically rendered Globe’s internet services useless? Hopefully this will never happen again with this new cable system.

Also according to Yuga, here are the following benefits for us consumers:

Much less congestion in Globe’s network so subscribers are able to achieve their allocated bandwidth speeds.

Reduced latency for business customers. This is good for VOIP and network gaming. The route between Singapore to Japan will now have the lowest latency in Asia at only 63ms.

Alternative international cable network that will reduce incidents (like connectivity failures and congestions) caused by natural disasters like the Taiwan earthquake of 2006.

Question now is, would this be really felt by Globe broadband customers? Would we finally get the prescribed bandwidth allocation we are paying for?

I’ll be keeping a close eye on my internet speeds for a couple of weeks to see if the new cable system has been good to my connection, otherwise, a possible increase on broadband subscription rates to recover Globe’s $90 milllion spent for this project would not be acceptable.

From uMobile to Red Mobile

jhay — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:55:47 +0000

Anyone else who got a phone call from uMobile reps? I did. Two phone calls actually, the first was yesterday afternoon and the second was just today shortly past lunch time. According to the agents who called, uMobile is gone and Red Mobile will replace it. Soon, between yesterday and November 24, my new Red Mobile SIM would be delivered to my home.

Yuga has more insider/expert info on this re-branding for uMobile, apparently, uMobile failed to achieve its key goals in order to survive like the 10,000 user base in a year. The hype was all good and all, but operational problems spelled out their doom. Like I blogged before, I rarely used my uMobile SIM ever since I got it last June.

I was excited back then because of the free credits that they’ll give out regularly in return for viewing their ads. Not bad, but because of inter-connection problems with Globe other networks, plus being amongst the very few other uMobile users in the country, it wasn’t worth it.

Oh well, hopefully this re-branding into Red Mobile will bring something new to the table. I say to them folks behind Red Mobile, the best of luck!