Has Smart complied with the recent NTC Memo?

Was just listening to SRO over at DZMM when a radio plug for the new Smart Bro Starter Plug-It aired with the announcer mentioning some sort of minimum speed and service reliability at the end of the ad.

Smart’s Starter Plug-It is a prepaid kit for their mobile internet service that sells for just Php995USD 17INR 1,437EUR 16CNY 123 and comes with 1 hour free internet.

So I went to their website to check out it and saw this:

The fine print confirms it. “Minimum GPRS speed of 12-48kbps, where broadband service is available”.

It does not say anything about the service reliability though, unlike the one in the radio ad which mentions something like 80% service uptime reliability.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

23 Comments

Jon Ferrer Mabanglo says:

13 years ago

Mr. Yugatech, “comply” not “complied”. Just wanna help.
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DigitalAnalog says:

13 years ago

Mr. Mabanglo, you’re not helping. :D
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Abe Olandres says:

13 years ago

@jon – thanks, was thinking of a good title. after 4 tries, I’m settling with this one.
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manaka_junpei says:

13 years ago

sana i-speedtest yang starter kit para malaman, baka lokohan na ‘to
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neo says:

13 years ago

Theres nothing wrong with the title. even smart has errors. view the photo: it says “Covergae”.

Plus yuga has somewhere on his disclaimer about the typos. So perfectionists, please back off. Just bite the meat.
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alice-in-lag says:

13 years ago

Sana yung pldt rin reliable. Haha. Konting ulan nadidisconnect, intermittent connections and erratic speed. :D

Halos wala kasi competition. The sadness of monopoly.
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neo says:

13 years ago

uhm share ko lng meron ako d2 e226 smartbro pero ni upgrade ko sa vivo firmware saka mobile partner dashboard. 500meters lang ung distance ng cellsite, pero wa epek pa rin 4 to 5kbps kahit old to new firmware/dashboard pa gamitin. pero ung e226 7.2 mbps ung theoretical speed nun.
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neo says:

13 years ago

lol correction. 100 meters lang pala. ung 500 eh half kilometer na.
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bibbo says:

13 years ago

Why can’t NTC mandate na lang metering broadband to be fair to the consumers. Meaning if you’re getting low speeds dapat far less lang ang babayaran mo or mababawasan sa load mo as compared to when you’re getting the advertised bandwidth.

Kita mo ginawa ’12 to 48′ kbps mas worse pa to sa dial-up.
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Kevin says:

13 years ago

Anyone here experiencing throttled downloads for torrent files? Surfing and normal http/ftp downloads are fine (no change from before, at least), but torrents are down to 5 kbps or worse for my Smart ShareIt subscription, which used to reach 100+ kbps a few months ago. I’ve asked Smart Customer Support (who traditionally are of little help at all) and they can’t give me an answer, be it due to an unannounced service terms change or just a technical problem.
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Jonaflormicfren says:

13 years ago

Smart is the close rival of Globe, so there is always an opposite move to every move they execute.
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Melvin says:

13 years ago

12-48kbps?? and it’s lower than the 56kbps dial-up. It will only show that you are still connected to the network but you might not be able to browse a page in about 2minutes. ang pages ngayon sobrang demanding na. As opposed to 2mbps, that’s less than 10% that’s the only guaranteed speed? worthless.. :))
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Fast click says:

13 years ago

moonlight is the best,. para yan sa mga di kontento sa speed ng ISP dito kahit minsan di ganun kabilis pero malaking matitipid,…
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Learn says:

13 years ago

Whatever Smart advertise regarding Rocket plug it is not true..or partially not true. Metro Manila is not HSPA+ in terms of network data capability..
so logical to say..you would not achieved that bandwidth speed..Its not even 60% 3G covered.
Also..broadband here in the Philippines is not stable..that’s why if you are look closely on the adverts..that they are saying up to 2Mbps or etc burst speed..on ordinary plug it..and up to 12 Mbps on this one..it just means that you could go up that speed in span of seconds or a minute the most..depending on the application that you are running that uses the bandwidth.
I’m sorry to say that this is just marketing strategy of almost all Telcos out here..

If you want stable and reliable speed there are cable internet that would provide that but the cons of it is that its not mobile like the plug it
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Yermy says:

13 years ago

Lokohin ni Manny Pangilinan ang lolo niyang panot!
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