The other day, we had a meeting with a Globe executive to finalize details of an upcoming project (that’s for another story though). During our meeting, I stirred our discussion to some juicy stories and they were candid enough to share some information (which I believe is bloggable since I wasn’t asked to sign an NDA *hehehe*).
I was told that new Globe Visibility users will be capped at 5GB of usage per month. The current monthly service fee for their mobile broadband solution (3G/HSDPA) is still at Php2,000 plus some activation fee. The cap is now included in the fine print but the existing subscribers will retain the eat-all-you can feature (unlimited).
Apparently, a lot of the Globe Visibility users are abusing (their word, not mine) the network. Almost ten percent (10%) of all users are pulling down in excess of 10GBs of data each month. That goes without saying that people are really maximizing their use and could be running P2P clients like bittorents. An analysis of the network usage even indicates that some people are not turning off their 3G modems and running them 24/7.
And though it’s the customers right to make use of their subscription however they want, this could led to other subscribers suffering in the end. Network congestion becomes a problem — a similar phenomenon commonly experienced by internet cable users. That May incident where a lot of Visibility users couldn’t use the HSDPA network was an isolated incident and purely a network problem (though the GPRS connection was fine, albeit excruciatingly slow).
They added that at the current rate, they’re already loosing from this project due to cost of running the network. Not surprisingly, I believe Smart Communications could be suffering from the same dilemma.
Looking at it in an economic perspective, the 3G roll out in the Philippines could be in danger. That’s why competing telcos like Smart and Globe are more aggressive in the sales department than in the after-sales support. It’s because in the end, if market usage/penetration cannot justify the cost of deployment and operations, the wisest thing to do (in the business sense) is discontinue the project.
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One simple question, “How many Pinoys owns a laptop?”
Shelling out 2-grand on an a 3G connection is quite simple, but something from 30K and above is another.
Unless laptops, notebooks and other mobile devices become much more affordable for the public, services like these would really be in danger of being discontinued.
I’ve had Globe Visibility for several months. At first it was great and I got up to 900kbps. Then there was the period where it was practically non-functional. And for the past several weeks it is only operating at dialup-like speed, even though I have an HSDPA connection.
The 5 GB cap would be fine with me, if they could deliver the service with decent speeds.
I couldn’t in good conscience recommend Globe to anybody given what is, in my opinion, very poor service.
.. IF they could deliver the advertised service …
pls tell the Globe exec’s to make 3G more affordable similar to smart. charging it per KB is really really expensive.
5GB sounds fine. I only used to use 2GB a month. Reliability is more important. Have since moved on to Smart 3G. I guess I never really need the speed nor do I stay online that much. Smarts P10/30 mins. does limit user “abuse”.
Yup, I agree. I think it’s a good move on the part of Globe. By capping the big users, they can better serve the entire userbase with adequate bandwidth. They just need to be transparent about it and the customers will understand. The commodity has limitations and if everyone tries to optimize the use of the service, I think the bandwidth issue will be addressed properly.
Can’t blame those 10% users, since Globe is marketing Visibility as a broadband service and they would use it as such.
What happens if you exceed the 5GB cap? Extra charges?
dapat siguro hindi globe visibility … globe DISABILITY ang tawag sa service.
Pano kasi ang daling hackin ang network ng globe, dami ko ngang kilala na they calling this trick as “FBT” Free browsing trick, they’re using it and i think those guys adds on the expenses of globe. Maybe globe should consider a time based rate for now, and a affordable for the prepaid users, because prepaid users who use HSDPA or GPRS services pulls the network’s limit. Tsaka,”abusing” is not the right term for this, dapat sabihin nating, “di umabot ung inaasahang tubong malaki ng globe. hehe. Plan ko pa namang kumuha na visibilty this october. How dissappointing cause im a kind of user who would exceed 5GB a month, im a gamer kasi. Online games needs a lot of simultaneous upload and download.
We are paying 2k , and we are not getting the promised speed. And they are blaming the subscribers for the slow speed. What will you do with a high speed internet if not for downloading. Kapalpakan ng globe. Anong gagawin mo sa internet pang browse ng globe.com.ph lang LMAO.