zacb wrote:Can't you get internet , for instance, in the Philippines 6 mbps for 30? Heck, that is double the speed of where I live. Shesh, you would think I was using Hughesnet
compared to the Philippines.
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No, Philippines internet is generally slow and doesn't work half the time unless you live in the downtown business district of a major city like Manila or Cebu. They don't have fiber optics yet, they are JUST starting to install them in the business districts but it will take years to even attempt to bring them to the outer parts of the cities let alone the provincial cities.
I supposedly have a 2 mbps DSL plan for around $35 a month, but it is more like 1mbps or less most of the time. They offer plans that claim to reach speeds of up to 10 mbps, but they don't mention it's only mostly working in select areas where most people don't live. Also depending on where you live the squatters will come around and cut the telephone cable lines to steal and use or sell for their own purposes. So if you don't live in a gated community or in a condo in the city you have to constantly deal with your line being cut and stolen, then yelling and screaming at CS to get someone to replace it no matter how regular it happens. Dealing with CS in Philippines is not easy cause they have to give you their panned catch phrases and solutions even though you tell them 10 times what the real issue is. Then half the time the repair guys don't show up or will pretend they did and say you weren't home so you have to call up again and yell and scream about it. It can be days to get service fixed. One time i rode the merry go round with CS-repair-CS-face-to-face CS-repair, ect for over 2 weeks and I was livid. Basically I'm the guy CS service hates to talk to cause I can't deal with their BS and I call them out on it. But it's the Philippines and CS WILL NEVER GET BETTER in this country cause they are taught not how to solve and deal with customer issues directly but with non-thinking scripts that just piss you off listening to them and the CS reps can't deviate from them. It's a nightmare, much worse than in the states.
The cable companies are trying to lure customers away from DSL by offering faster speeds at lower prices but they cap the amount of data you can use per month so it defeats the purpose of having high speed if you download a lot of stuff or watch a lot of online video.
I remember I was using 56k dial up in the middle of Makati up until around 2007/08, that's how lame the telephone/internet providers are here, completely backwards.
The speeds in the states are generally at least twice as fast as Philippines. Basically I have figured out that PI is roughly 8-10 years behind in most recent technology being used in 1st/2nd world countries. The reasons are many but the main factor is infrastructure, they just don't upgrade it enough or maintain it properly to sustain emerging technologies. It's one of the factors why the Philippines is so backwards in many quality of life areas, however it's one reason why older foreigners like living here cause the technology changes are so slow they don't really need to adapt to them like they would in their native 1st world countries. They can run around with the primitive Nokia candy bar phones where the most sophisticated feature is a working flash light and get away with it.
However you can get prepaid DSL without having to sign a long term contract but the usability of the USB sticks are grossly misrepresented by the phone companies and your lucky if you can get 200kbps regularly. Also if you use it for more than a couple of hours they will cut your speed down to less then 100kbps to get you to stop using it, so they are only good for a crutch like checking basic websites and emails, not for watching Youtube videos all day. Basically there is a lot of false advertising here in this country, it's just a bit more blatant and obvious than in the West once you try out the product. This includes all products, not just technology though.
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher, 121-180 A.D.
