Sun Broadband Speed

Last Christmas, I made a post about our activities during the holidays. One of our gifts that my wife and I shared was to buy a new desktop computer. We figured that we really need a computer since most of the time we do our blogging activities after work or during weekends. After buying a desktop computer, I decided to purchase a broadband modem from Sun Cellular so we can go online at home immediately without waiting for approval from cable companies who offer DSL internet connection. I decided to get Sun instead of Smartbro and Globe Tattoo since at that time it was the cheapest and a few friends told me the connection is good.

Just like any other advertisements we see on the tv and print, Sun Cellular is no different. They claim that you can get a speed of as high as 3.6 mbps but the truth, after using their services for almost a month now, i cannot even get a connection close to 1.0 mbps. The average speed i get is 120 kbps. That is not even 25% of the speed they claim you can get when you decide to use their services. Most of the time, i get 0.15 kbps and sometimes i just get disconnected after being online for a few hours. Is Sun offering broadband internet or dial-up? Frankly, i could not tell the difference because of their broadband snail speed. Now, to be fair to them, i understand that broadband signal depends on the location. Presently I am located here in Quezon City just 10 minutes away from Cubao or Eastwood, Libis. Is my location difficult to reach? Is this one of Sun Cellular's dead spot?

Hopefully their services will get better in a few months. But my wife and I cannot wait for their improvements. We were just talking yesterday about our friends experiences with other companies. If our budget permits, we might consider trying Smartbro or Bayantel. I did not include PLDT to our choices since our connection at the office is PLDT and we had several bad experiences with them. I know Smart and PLDT are managed by the same people but I hope Smartbro is better than what we have right now. Our connection right now is really bad. Hopefully people considering to avail of their services will think twice. But then again, you can always give the lame excuse of location problems.

Mafia Wars, Street Racing and Facebook

I was not into Facebook before but recently, i got hooked up in Mafia Wars and Street Racing. My limited time for blogging went all to playing these games in Facebook. I knew i will be addicted to these games when my friend invited me but i tried it anyway. Now i have been looking forward everyday to play until i reach high levels or until i got bored. Some friends invited me too at Farmville and poker, i am sure i will be hooked up to those games too so i have not tried them yet.

Internet games are so addictive that i hear DJs in radio stations talking about couples having problems because they have limited time for each other. After spending most of their time working or studying, they will immediately log on to internet games, usually in Facebook and build a good reputation. Family time or time with your loved ones are sacrificed and people end up spending more time or socializing with friends on the net. Sometimes we have to think twice before joining any social networking sites because definitely it will get time from our usual daily activities.

Even Bayantel has been aggressively promoting their products and have come up with a new and effective way of advertising. Lola Techie is all over TV, billboards and streamers and they even had an event introducing internet to senior citizens like her. I heard Lola Techie say that she was really thankful that she knows how to use the internet and she urged people her age to try internet too. Can you imagine when our grandparents are also hooked up in Facebook and other social networking sites? What will happen to the good old quality time with the family. Will there be Christmas seasons, special family occasions and reunions if everybody is hooked up in the web?

Internet has its advantages and disadvantages and it is up to us to manage our time wisely and learn to prioritize what or who are really important to us.

Internet Connection Problems

For the past 10 days, i was not able to open up my email, log on to this blogsite and visit my friends. The reason, our internet connection at the office had a major wiring problem. We reported the problem to PLDT but the technician only visited us after 2 days. He recommended we change our telephone line so our office purchased 1 roll to be sure that there will be enough telephone line to connect our office to the telephone's panel box. After 1 day of rewiring, we still did not have internet connection. We again called PLDT customer service to report the problem. Due to their efficiency, their technician visited us after 4 days since our second call. Not that we were not following up by consistently calling their hotline, i guess they really do not have enough qualified technicians. After another 2 days, finally our PLDT dsl line got connected. The technician replaced all kinds of boxes, panels, wires and other stuff to isolate the connection problem. We were so relieved to get connected after more than 7 days but after 1 hour when the PLDT technicians left our office, our DSL got disconnected again.

After another day, we got connected again, but once all the computers tried to access the internet, speed was sacrificed. We began isolating all our wires and tried to figure out which computer is causing the problem. And guess what, it seems my desktop was the culprit. Every time i tried to access the web, all other computers got disconnected. I figured it might be a virus so i tried to run a virus check. After performing a virus check, my pc did not report any infection. My virus scan is free so i guess it is not that reliable. Well, in short, i still do not have a reliable internet connection as of this time. I was able to log on today by using another computer unit. Chances are, i might not get connected again next week because this computer unit will be used by another office person.

I apologize to my friends who i have not visited lately. Hopefully everything will be back to normal this coming week.