Smart Bro

I've been a Smart Bro pre-paid user for the last 3 years or so. I bought my Smart Bro usb plug-it right after they halved the introductory price, if I remember correctly, to around 900 php a pop. This was the original version, way before they introduced these new generation of  Smart Bro plug-it variants. In fairness to Smart they have not pushed out my old generic usb into obsolesence. Original sim card and all, the old plug-it still works just fine.

I usually go for the 200 php unlimited surfing package which is good for 5 days. At 40 php a day, I was hoping I would get a little more speed.  There are days when it breaches 1.5 mbps, but those are the rare days. On average, I'd say it hovers at around 500 kbps, at least here at the Novaliches-Fairview area. 500 kbps means youtube videos at 320p lags pretty bad. You can watch it, you just have to be willing to watch it stop and go.

From personal experience, Friday and Saturday nights, from around 5 pm to around 9 pm, and you can expect Smart Bro signal to get pretty clogged up. I know, the guy at the store told you that this wouldn't happen, it's a different technology they said, yeah right. But here I am telling you now, it can be a pain to squeeze out anything more than the basic internet functions at these times.

On the plus side, Smart Bro signal is pretty stable. Even during stormy weather and the whole of Metro Manila suffering from a total black-out, you can still expect Smart Bro to be there with you, so you can surf the latest news on the web with your laptop.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with Smart Bro. If only it was just that much faster and that little bit cheaper, then I'd be perfectly happy.