Please email me at my jangelo (at) gmail.com address for the meantime.

I got an invitation to attend the launch party of this yet-undisclosed (as of that time) telco, but I wasn’t able to attend. Turns out it was ü Mobile, and they had launched an innovative (relatively) mobile service, which lets users get free credits for receiving advertisements.

The service seems to be exclusive, though, as they are targeting the 15- to 35-year old demographic. That’s understood, given the need to target advertisements. And perhaps we can assume that if you’re over 35, you probably don’t have the patience to read ads; or perhaps you have enough disposable income that you would prefer to pay for services rather than get freebies.

And so I got a call the other day from ü Mobile telling me they are sending over a SIM card. I got the SIM this morning, and excitedly plugged it into my Nokia 1112. After several attempts to make calls and send SMS, I gave up. I had a hunch that the service only worked over 3G networks, which i confirmed after calling customer service.

It’s a bit disappointing, since the ü Mobile network supposedly ran over Smart’s network. So ideally it should work both on the UMTS and GSM networks. I did have a spare 3G-enabled phone I could use the SIM on, but it was locked to Smart. Even if ü Mobile were a Smart brand, I still couldn’t use it because of the locks (while other Smart brands like Talk n Text and Addict Mobile can be used on Smart-locked phones).

Easiest option for now would be to plug the SIM into my E51 (review to follow), but then being my main mobile (for use with both business and personal calls and text, IM’ing and VoIP) I would rather not.

Or, I could have my LG KU250 unlocked, but it would void warranty. Or perhaps I could acquire another (unlocked) 3G-enabled mobile, but this would be a truly unnecessary expense.

My ü Mobile SIM would have to wait, then. Ah, the lost advertising opportunities.

There are various reasons why the Philippines is called the texting capital of the world. For one, text messaging is cheaper than voice calls (at least in the country). Secondly, Filipinos are known not to be a bit on the shy side when it comes to communicating. So we would rather text than call because the impersonal nature of texting serves as a veil between the communicants—one doesn’t have to worry about emotions or reactions. And for the forgetful ones like myself, I like keeping info (or agreements!) in my SMS inbox, so I won’t forget.

The recent upsurge of “wireless landline” services, however, goes to show that telcos are tapping that unused capacity of their networks in bringing about a new service—something I would call a “hybrid” one, but something that others may consider bordering on marketing gimmick.

Until recently, wireless landline services had to be exclusively subscribed-to, and required exclusive handsets. Some networks even use systems that are not same as the most widely used standard here, which is GSM. Bayantel, for one, uses CDMA. And until recently, using wireless landline services meant using a full-sized telephone apparatus, complete with the wired handset and the base with antenna. Portable, true. But one might look silly walking around at the mall speaking into what looks like a wired landline phone (at least that was what I thought when the service first came out a year ago).

But then the candybar-type handsets came to be popular, also. These were as portable as your usual mobile phone, but without the limitation of per-minute charged calls.

And for about a year after wireless landline services were introduced, these were usually postpaid plans with unlimited outgoing calls and SMS messages. But now the trend is going towards prepaid.

Hands on with PLDT’s wireless landline service

So I’ve wanted one for the longest time. My wife preferred the large apparatus type unit (if ever we were to go for one). But we didn’t feel the need for it yet. So it was way below our to-do / to-acquire list. But I got an offer from fellow blogger Jepoy, who was giving out prepaid PLDT Landline Plus SIM cards.

What was really great about the PLDT service was that it was no longer limited to specialized handsets. One could acquire a PLDT Landline Plus Prepaid SIM card, plug it into any GSM phone (Smart locked or unlocked), and voila! You have service!

I got my SIM card in the mail this afternoon (after much anticipation through the weekend) and tried it out. Here are some photos and my initial thoughts.

• The service functions much like a regular prepaid GSM subscription, albeit a basic one. There’s caller ID, but there are not much bells and whisltes (like wireless Internet, call waiting, call forwarding, etc.)
• Voice quality is good—I would expect this of the Smart network. It does have an echo sometimes, though.
• Coverage is good so far. I would expect this of Smart, too.
• Interconnectivity is good, so far. From my Bayantel landline at home, I could connect 100% of the time. Other reviewers, though, say that interconnectivity is iffy at about 75%.

I tried the SIM on my LG KU250 (the one stolen and recovered). And for one to use a “wireless landline” SIM on such a phone would be overkill, as Max Limpag would say. The data connectivity features of the phone would just be put to waste. So later this week I’m off to get myself a cheapo basic phone (much like what I use as my main phone).

I had no problems activating the SIM from my home office. Jepoy says you need to be in an area where the Smart cell site is already upgraded to handle PLDT wireless landline activation. No problem on my end, though.

Jepoy posts a comparison between two of the more popular prepaid wireless landline services here. I’m a loyal Bayantel user, so I initially wanted to get a Bayantel wireless landline phone. But then I would have to purchase a new handset altogether (which is incompatible with the rest of the country’s networks), and a dedicated SIM. The advantage, though, is that Bayantel has per-call charging, while PLDT’s is per-minute. But that’s for outgoing calls. Knowing how ingenious we can be at penny pinching, many users would probably just use the outgoing calls to ask the other end to call back.

Then again, as earlier mentioned, the telcos may have just found a really smart way to extend the use of their existing networks by marketing the service as a “wireless landline” service, when they could, in fact, just introduce cellular plans that are more focused on cheap voice calls rather than text.

I’ll be road testing this service soon, so watch out for more insights.

Enter Smart 3G / GPRS, with PhP 10 per 30-minute charging, and I found it was a good backup system when I’m in areas without decent (or free) WiFi coverage. At least this could work with prepaid, and I won’t be locked into long-term contracts.

Sure it’s not blazingly fast. You max out at 384 Kbps. But considering you’re mobile (and not likely downloading Gigabytes and Gigabytes of files), I think that’s sufficient. Works okay with VoIP and even video chatting.

Smart Bro Anywhere

Smart recently introduced an “anywhere Internet” plan under their Smart Bro brand. Thing is, the introductory marketing material said you get 60 hours for PhP 799 a month. So that’s about PhP 13 per 30 minutes, or approximately a 40% savings over prepaid. In excess of that you pay the usual rates of PhP 10 per 30 minutes.

Thing is, I talked to a marketing rep earlier today, and she clarified that the initial announcement was wrong. They give you 40 hours for the PhP 799 plan. that means you still pay the equivalent of PhP 10 per 30 minutes, but with a one-peso saving per month.

So instead of spending about PhP 800 for the same amount of online time (i.e., at PhP 20 per hour), you spend PhP 799.

40 HOURS FREE per MONTH!

• Initial Payment – P1,999 (upon subscription)


• Monthly Fee – P799 only


• In excess of 40 hours will be charged P10 per block of 30 minutes.

I would rather stick to my prepaid plan, considering I’ve already bought myself an LG KU250 to serve as a 3G modem. The KU250 is affordable enough at PhP 6,000. That’s cheap for a 3G-enabled phone (cheap on the price, but I think the value exceeds my expectations).

Now the advantage of this Smart Bro plan is you get the Huawei USB modem for just PhP 1,999 (whereas the modem sells for upwards of PhP 10,000 outside of this subsidy). That in itself makes it worth to subscribe to Smart Bro with this USB plan.

Still, one advantage with my using my 3G phone to use as modem, I have one advantage—I can surf without opening my laptop (or ultraportable computer, as is the case with the Asus Eee). I can just open Opera Mini and work from there. Of course, this is just for those emergency cases where I really need to connect, but don’t have the luxury of sitting down somewhere to open my laptop.

So, what do you think? Is the Smart Bro USB plan worth it?

My first problem was making it work on Ubuntu. Initially I was only able to use it with Windows, with the bundled PC connectivity suite. But that’s now solved with these configurations.

Here’s my current speedtest.net result:

Not bad for mobile internet. What’s great is that I was able to install Opera Mini so I have a more or less full-fledged browser on my phone.

The Nokia 1100, according to Wikipedia, is the world’s best selling handset, having shifted 200 million units. It seems to cost about $20, often less, and has a battery life of about 400 hours. And, crucially for my friend, sports two important features: It makes and receives calls and SMS. Beyond that, in the words of Bryan Ferry, there’s nothing. (Well, actually there’s WAP, but who uses that?)

The point about the Nokia 1100 is that it’s a phone. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else (except a flashlight, if you press and hold the “c” key down (presumably “c” stands for torCh or flasChlight or “come into the light where I can see you, Mildred”.) It’s designed for conditions in developing countries—dustproof keyboard, non-slip sides—but for many of us that could describe an ordinary day in the office (dusty, slippery, in need of illumination).

For my PIM and mobile Internet needs, I use my laptop!

Another indication you might be really busy is when your blog posts are this short.

I don’t know what has happened to that project. Chances are, it’s still going through the bureaucratic hurdles (it’s a joint venture with the private sector after all, and these things really take years to process).

Looks like we have a long way to go. I chanced upon this post by Greg Moreno of MicroISV Philippines (one of our .com.ph bloggers) detailing some corrupt practices at the Cainta post office.

For the past 3 weeks, I’ve been sending out snail mails to Deped officials, school associations, and schools for my SchoolPad website. My mail includes 8 pages of letter-size bond papers. The cost for each mail is 23 pesos (around $0.50).

The other day, one mail was returned because the addressee has resigned. OK, no problem. Except that the cost of the mail is only 14 pesos as stamped on the envelope. If not for this returned mail, I wouldn’t have known the true cost.

When you send a mail just like mine, the receiving staff would weigh your mail first before telling you the price. The price list is not posted anywhere and only the receiving staff can see the price list or maybe she acts as if there is a price list. You cannot even see the reading on the weighing scale. The 1st time, I asked for a receipt but the lady in charge politely said they don’t give receipts and that everything is OK. The reason I asked for the receipt is I want to be sure that they would actually send my mail. The 2nd time, my worry is that the price would change given that the weight and price list is virtually non-existent. The good thing is they price consistently. They also corrupt consistently.

Whenever I claim registered mail at the Quezon City post office, they always issue receipts (anyway, the PhP 35 for “customs inspection” is standard). I haven’t lost any mails yet (including ever-important AdSense and TLA checks), so the QC post office seems to be efficient and effective in doing their job.

The goings-in at the Cainta post office reeks of blatant corruption.

Can something be done about this?

I always thought you only had to stick a postage stamp onto your envelope and it will be sent to its destination. Maybe people can avoid paying over the counter and instead just buy stamps directly to avoid this kind of abuse.

The concept behind Aryty.com is strikingly simple, but with lots and lots of potential, in my opinion. Aryty basically lets users send prepaid credits to Philippine mobile phones—be it Globe, Smart or Sun Cellular. They don’t even charge any fees in excess of the actual credit amount. Users just have to go to Aryty.com, sign up, and send load to any prepaid number in the Philippines using their credit cards to pay.

And why does it have lots of potential? Get this. While internet penetration rate in the Philippines is at a dismal 10% or less (most of which access at public access points like internet cafés), mobile penetration rate is around 50% of the population, or around 50 million people. And what’s even better for Aryty’s business is that a good majority of Filipinos have friends or family members living abroad either as immigrants, expats or migrant workers.

So that means Aryty saw great demand, and they’re now filling in that gap. The competition is not actually other companies doing the same thing, but the behavior of the consumers themselves. Here in the Philippines, a good majority of mobile users are on prepaid, and credits can be bought just about anywhere—including stalls or shops in the malls, small corner stores, convenience stores, gasoline stations, and even your next door neighbor. You can even ask someone to pass or share load from his cellphone to yours, if you run low.

The prevailing preference is for micro purchases (say PhP 50 or about $1 a pop), but larger amounts are available (like PhP 300 or 500—about $6 to $10). These are still cheap by US standards, mind you.

But Aryty says it’s tapping the remittance-sending market, meaning those Filipinos who usually send bulk of their earnings back to their families here. So instead of them having to worry about their relatives back here who might need a few bucks to buy credits, they can just send them load at the comfort of their own Internet-connected computers. Remittances aren’t instantly sent and received, after all, but load can be sent in a matter of a few seconds.

What’s even more convenient is that once a user is registered, he/she can send load to mobile phones in the philippines not only from their computers, but even from their cellphones thru SMS.

And taking into account that not all Filipinos abroad are professionals with bank accounts and credit cards, Aryty will be opening stalls (or affiliating with shops?) where Pinoys can pay cash for credits to be sent here.

The group (composed mostly of bloggers) fielded a lot of questions and suggestions to the Nils and Daniel, and these were mostly about how secure the system is, and whether there’s room to improve or expand to other fields, like remittance, and even micropayments using prepaid load. Nils said they invested a lot of money and over a year’s effort of working on the back-end, so the system is solid and secure.

And as to their business model? We wondered if they will be sustainable, given that they won’t be charging fees on top of the actual prepaid load. The answer: they’ve purchased the credits in bulk, so they must have bought these at a huge discount. Note that local retailers also rely on the bulk discounts to earn. So for instance small retailers probably get about 10% discount on the prepaid load they sell, so they earn about PhP 10 for every PhP 100 they sell. The more credit or cards they buy for resale, the bigger the discount (I hear the larger retailers get about 30% discount or larger).

A summary

Let me summarize the good points and the bad points I see with Aryty so far.

The good points

• You can send load via the Internet.
• First time users get a free PhP 150 or about US$ 3 to send to Philippine mobile owners.
• Users need verification using a US- or Canada-issued mobile number, so the potential for abuse (i.e., multiple sending of PhP 150 load) is lesseneed.
• Local users can send text to foreign mobile numbers to request for load. Foreign users (US and Canada for now) will then receive the request on their mobile. If the number is registered already, they can just respond to send the load (and debit their debit/credit card). If not, they can login to Aryty.com to send the requested load.
• As mentioned, both sender and requester can use their mobile phones to ask for or send load, so there is no need to have access to a computer (as long as the sender is already registered).

Things to improve on

• For now, the service is only open to the US and Canada, hence a limited reach. Pinoys live and work all over the world, and this would be a good market to tap (which Nils says they are planning to do soon).
• The service is yet to open here in the Philippines. However, whether there is a demand here is still debated, since there is a low percentage of Filipinos with credit cards, and most who do are not very comfortable with using credit cards to transact online.

Suggestions

• Prepaid credit as currency? Can be a legal/technical hassle, but it’s probably doable. Vmobile tried this before. I wonder if they got any success.
• Of course, more countries.
• More payment options (like PayPal and even cash).
• Aryty as a remittance service?
• Have a button for bloggers/web publishers who might want to be “tipped” by prepaid load. Micropayments via PayPal aren’t here yet, but perhaps you can get rich by receiving thousands in prepaid load!

So if you Are in the Philippines and you have friends and relatives in the US or Canada, or vice versa, go try out Aryty.com !

Here’s an email I recently sent to SkyDSL customer service. If you have been experiencing slow speeds on your SkyDSL or Bayantel DSL (essentially the same) accounts, please don’t hesitate to call them up or send email. Their address is csdip@bayantel.com.ph .

Dear Bayantel/SkyDSL,

I’ve been having very slow speeds and unreliable connections on several of my SkyDSL accounts since about two weeks ago. I’ve been getting very high latency and low speeds, and this has badly affected my productivity (most of my work is Web related). I called up 411-2000 but the CSR I talked to said there were no outages or maintenance operations being done on the network. Still, I’ve been getting bad performance, regardless of machine (both PCs and Macs) I use, and on two locations.

Here are some details.

On both my apartments, I use Sky DSL bundled in with my telephone subscription. One 768kbps and one 384kbps.

768K – username (xxxxx). tel no (xxx-xxxx)
384K – username (xxxxx). tel no (xxx-xxxx)

Both of these are along Maginhawa St. in Teachers Village East Quezon City.

Here is a sample traceroute output (to gmail.google.com, one of the sites I find quite slow these days). I was asked by the CSR to send these over for your analysis.

Traceroute has started …

traceroute to gmail.l.google.com (209.85.139.107), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets

1. 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 7.345 ms 2.492 ms 2.396 ms
2. 202.78.96.116 (202.78.96.116) 32.113 ms 35.902 ms 34.489 ms
3. 202.78.97.157 (202.78.97.157) 28.060 ms 32.474 ms 22.195 ms
4. 210.4.2.195 (210.4.2.195) 24.580 ms 23.940 ms 22.066 ms
5. so-1/1/0.ig3.lax1.alter.net (63.114.59.105) 330.247 ms 334.106 ms 325.866 ms
6. 0.so-7-0-0.xl1.lax1.alter.net (152.63.112.250) 328.786 ms 392.810 ms *
7. 152.63.57.78 (152.63.57.78) 329.267 ms * 328.802 ms
8. 0.so-6-0-0.br1.lax7.alter.net (152.63.112.41) 327.186 ms 321.951 ms 327.682 ms
9. lap-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net (205.171.1.145) 206.683 ms 202.827 ms *
10. bur-core-02.inet.qwest.net (205.171.213.109) 203.963 ms 211.153 ms 205.584 ms
11. sea-core-01.inet.qwest.net (67.14.1.186) 216.476 ms * 218.024 ms
12. * sea-edge-08.inet.qwest.net (205.171.26.74) 222.415 ms 218.789 ms
13. * 65.121.106.86 (65.121.106.86) 242.668 ms 240.028 ms
14. 72.14.239.12 (72.14.239.12) 1467.341 ms 1513.570 ms 1480.514 ms
15. 72.14.233.37 (72.14.233.37) 1465.196 ms 1461.246 ms 1466.459 ms
16. 209.85.250.69 (209.85.250.69) 242.306 ms 209.85.250.65 (209.85.250.65) 1511.369 ms 209.85.250.69 (209.85.250.69) 241.461 ms
17. * 72.14.239.190 (72.14.239.190) 242.521 ms 72.14.239.194 (72.14.239.194) 1513.615 ms
18. * pr-in-f107.google.com (209.85.139.107) 1503.991 ms *

And here are some speedtest.net results.

The first one is using the Bayantel server in QC:

Download speed: 763 kbps
Upload speed: 701 kbps
Latency: 106 ms

The second one is using a Hong Kong server:

Download speed: 50 kbps
Upload speed: 41 kbps
Latency: 580 ms

This third one is using a San Jose, CA server:

Download speed: 132 kbps
Upload speed: 126 kbps
Latency: 243 ms

Notice the big speed difference. With this, I think we can perhaps initially rule out any problem from my end to your end (meaning between my computer/s and Bayantel) because connection from here to the Bayantel server (using speedtest) is fast. But connection to the rest of the world is slow.

I hope you can help out with resolving this problem. This is particularly unfortunate to people like myself who rely on the Internet to do work and business. And I have had several colleagues complaining of lost productivity due to slow speeds.

Regards,

Angelo Racoma