Category: WiFi

Checking out LTE speeds here in Tokyo, Japan

Abe Olandres Leave a comment

The first thing we did when we landed at the Narita Airport last Monday was to rent a 4G Pocket WiFi at one of the shops just outside the arrival area. This provided us access to mobile internet throughout our trip here.

The device is a Huawei E5-series although not the same as the E589 LTE we have in the Philippines. The lease costs about Php2,500 for the 4 days that we’re here so that brings it to about Php600 per day. Not bad when you compare it to the usual $10-$15 roaming charges and besides, it comes with an 8-hour LTE pocket WiFi.

Based on the last 3 days that we’ve been testing it, the average speed we normally get is about 6Mbps while the highest we’ve ever clocked was just 14Mbps. It’s not bad but not earth-shattering as we expected.

In fact, the LTE speeds we get in the Philippines is almost the same if not better. The only difference that we notice is that LTE signal is almost everywhere, a stark contrast to the sparse LTE signal we have in Metro Manila.

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SM management limits free WiFi access

Bob Freking Leave a comment

Whenever, I’m at an SM Mall, I immediately connect to their free Wi-Fi service to keep my feeds updated all throughout my stay. But just recently when I was at the SM Mall of Asia, I noticed that the Wi-Fi connection on my Nexus 4 was automatically disconnected.

SM

That’s when I saw a notification on my browser stating that I have reached the maximum free WiFi access for the day. After that, I tried connecting on my Nexus 7 – and only just then that I spotted the time limit – 1 hour.

This may come as a bad news to some mall goers, particularly those who just hang out at the mall to leech on the mall’s free internet access. On the other hand, this will benefit the majority of the people as it will result to faster internet connection.

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Philippine Airlines now with WiFi and Cellular on board

yuga Leave a comment

Last April, Philippine Airlines (PAL) announced that they will start offering in-flight WiFi internet and call/test roaming in some of their regional routes by mid-year. It’s already July and we’ve now seen them putting this service in place.

On board a Boeing 777-300ERs this afternoon, we saw the service work during our 3-hour flight from Bangkok to Manila.

There’s actually a cell signal which your phone registers to when it’s set to automatic. The carrier is labeled OnAir and you get a welcome message once connected. Rates are similar to international roaming (not sure which one but could be from originating country?).

As for the WiFi internet, charges are on time-based billing:

$5 for 30 minutes
$10 for 1 hour
$20 for 3 hours
$40 for entire duration of the flight

If you have multiple devices, you can log in on the web-based system and connect them as well without additional charges.

Of course, the airline will still enforce the turning off of devices during taxi, take-off and landing of the plane. The service will only start working when the plane reaches the 37,000 feet altitude (around 20-30 minutes after take-off) and will be disabled upon descent.

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Blogging at 30,000 feet with Gogo In-Flight WiFi Internet

yuga Leave a comment

Been hearing about all that in-flight WiFi in the US for a year now and we’ve also reported that local carriers Cebu Pacific and PAL will also offer them. This time, we got to try the in-flight internet service during our trip from Orlando to Detroit.

Was flying Delta all the way from Manila to Nagoya, to Detroit then Orlando but the WiFi service was only available between Detroit and Orlando.

The WiFi is powered by Gogo and you can subscribe to the internet service based on a per hour, per flight or even monthly basis. The monthly fee is about $40 for unlimited use but if you want to just try it for a bit, it’s $3 for 30 minutes, $6 for 60 minutes (plus free 30 mins) and about $8 for the duration of the entire flight (2.5 hours from Detroit to Orlando).

You pay via credit card and can start using it about 20 minutes after the plane has taken off. The speed is decent, I tested around 437Kbps using 2Wire.

If they could also offer this for the entire duration of my 13-hour flight across the Pacific, that would have made the trip more bearable.

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PLDT intros myBro Plan499 at 512Kbps, capped at 3GB

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PLDT has introduced a more affordable plan under their myBro fixed wireless internet services. A new PLDT myBro Plan 499 plan offers up to 512Kbps of WiMax service with a monthly bandwidth cap of only 3GB.

In June 2012, PLDT/Smart re-branded its fixed wireless residential internet service from SmartBro to myBro (originally Smart WiFi). The SmartBro brand now only covers mobile wireless services (Plug-It, Pocket WiFi, Rocket, Rocket WiFi).

During that time, they introduced two plans — a myBro Plan 799 with up to 512Kbps unlimited internet at Php799/month and a myBro Plan 999 with up to 1Mbps unlimited internet at Php999/month.

It looks like they have dropped the unlimited myBro Plan 799 and replaced it with a more affordable myBro Plan 499. The new myBro Plan 499 will still have speeds of up to 512Kbps but will be capped at 3GB. Once you reached the cap, you will be redirected to the myBro portal where you can buy more bandwidth.

The service plans comes with a WiMax Pocket Modem for single-user access only and you will be charged an additional Php100 a month for its amortization.

According to the myBro website, a 3GB cap will give you approximately 10,000 minutes visiting Facebook. That’s 166.7 hours or just a little under 7 straight days before you ran out of bandwidth.

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