Thanks to Airborneaccess, I was able to survive 48 hours without PLDT myDSL, Smart Bro and even Smart GPRS in our area here at Evangelista, Bangkal. Everyone lost theiur phone lines and there was an unconfirmed news that someone or some group looted PLDT’s boxes somewhere in the Pasong Tamo area which caused the entire block to go down without dial tones or DSL.
Anyway, went around looking for alternatives the other day and found out that AA has also added their hotspot map on Google Earth. All you need to do is download the KMZ file here, fire up Google Earth to see where are all the hotspots.
A really nice addition to their feature-set, esp. to people like me who are always out and about.
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Here’s a Google Maps version for those who don’t have Google Earth: =)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=http://www.airborneaccess.net/Airborne%2520Access%2520Hotspots.kmz&ie=UTF8&z=10&t=k&om=1
“…unconfirmed news that someone or some group looted PLDT’s boxes somewhere in the Pasong Tamo area which caused the entire block to go down without dial tones or DSL.”
exactly what happened to us here in greenhills two weeks ago. the whole condo lost all PLDT phoneline (and DSL) connection — for a whole freaking week! pldt should learn the meaning of spares…
good thing though: (1) i was in the US most of that week; (2) nearby promenade greenhills had WIZ
There we go, great. Now all we need is the rest of the companies to follow suit … use the free tools already out there, and make it easy for everyone to get on line.
PS for those with the talent and rive but no business idea? How can a city the size of manila have no real map online? You can see all the streets in great detail with G earth or G maps, but how does a stranger know EDSA from Buendia?
Twitter: mparaz
replied on Sep 28th, 2006 at 3:03 am (4)
seav:
nice one, I did not know that Google Maps could now read kmz files.
Dave:
the maps are there but expensive and without republishing rights. the NAMRIA government agency sells them.
A bit late with this so likely no one will read it, but I thought I’d answer Migs’ comment to my original.
I know what NAMRAI has, and a lot of it is older than you and I together. The same situation existed in the US only 10 or so years ago.
Then Yahoo and Google and others came along and put everything (in much more consumer detail than the NAMRAI’s of the world ever had) on line and make big bucks from it. They obviously haven’t yet seen the dollar (peso) potential in Manila, Cebu etc. yet.
That’s sort of my point. Half the traffic you see in tech-related blogs and forums are guys moaning about ‘oh if only I had an idea to make money online.’
Well the opportunity is certainly there vis-a-vis the Philippines. Access to the basic data is certainly there. I using can nearly count the GI sheets on the roof of my house in Marilao, but I can’t plan a road trip to my SIL in Q.C. … or real important to a new resident, find a business (where I’m by necessity going to spend money) on a map.
I dont know if the solution is to find a way to interest Google or Yahoo in expanding or for someone to make it a free-standing venture, but a lot of advertising pesos are being left on the table.
Just a thought