YugaTech | Philippines, Tech Reviews Blog

The telecoms industry have always been slugging it out in terms of “price wars”. Sometimes, they’d also do the same in the technology front and being the first of anything new is always considered a prized trophy. Globe and Smart (and Sun, pre-PLDT acquisition) have been like that for years.

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That’s according to a recent report of the FCC in the US — broadband subscribers in the US only get around 50% of the promised internet speeds by service providers.

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Andre Cruz tipped me on this breaking news on Inquirer.net about “PLDT to charge for data transmission via its landlines“.

THE PHILIPPINE Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has said it will start charging fees for data transmission using its basic telephone landlines.

Through what it calls the alternate voice data line (AVD), subscribers who use the same basic telephone line for voice calls and data transmission will be required to connect a special data or voice access device to the basic telephone line.

PLDT said the service will provide a secure means to automatically process and authorize credit card transactions, real-time. One common use for AVD is credit card verification for business subscribers.

Full story here. AVD is a single transmission facility used for either voice or data.

The charges include Php300 a month for the basic AVD, VAT inclusive. An additional fee of P50 to P500 will be added to the charge for connecting an AVD device for residential use and P100 to P1,000 for business use. Other charges will be added for additional services that will use the same line.

I’m a little confused about this article and it’s not really clear if PLDT will start charging people who are using their phone lines for dial-up internet or DSL. I hope I am wrong in that assumption but if that’s how it will end, I don’t understand why would the NTC allow it when they claim that the new service is in line with the government’s thrust to encourage more customer-friendly and affordable telecom services in the country.

The story mentioned about more secure credit card processing and it reminded me of those swipe card machines found at the cashiers. Are those the ones they refer to that needs an AVD line? This needs to be clarified and I don;t want to see any additional charges on my next PLDT billing with the line that says AVD.

Smart Communications thought their Smart Wifi brand is knee deep in the mud right now that the best thing to remedy the bad publicity is to re-name it. So, they came up with Smart Bro (is that a shortcut for broadband?)

They did some clean-up and even remove pages from their official site which mentioned Smart Wifi. Too bad that page is already #1 on Google, Yahoo and MSN for the term “smart wifi”. (I suppose my blog will take over that spot, eh?)

Migs pointed out that that Smart Bro is also a browser and a few days after the switch, Smart’s pages are already in the front page for the keyword. (I’m hoping this page will be somewhere near in the next couple of days.)

PLDT’s myDSL-w has also been consolidated under this single brand name. Subscribers comment that there’s really nothing new in terms of service improvements — just pure PR and bundling of services.

A commenter at Smart Wifi Chronicles adds:

Kaya lang nagpalit ng pangalan ang Smart Wifi To Smart BRO para maitago yung negative feedbacks ng Smart WiFi na masesearch sa Google. Kung Smart BRO nga naman ang search mo, wala pang negative feed back kasi sariwa pa.

… and I kinda agree with him.

The subscription plan did change to Php999/month, which is more expensive than the old one.

P.S.
They already registered smartbro.com.ph but left out .ph, .net.ph and .org.ph.

[tags]wifi, wi-fi, broadband, wireless, internet, dsl, isp, internet[/tags]