It has been established that Philippines is one of the country with poor internet connection. I’ve been using pocket wifi for a year already, it was a great experience rather than going to town and went online through internet cafe’s but I need more other than being connected, I need fast internet so I can use laptop and do my freelance work online. The connection was great early in the morning but later on it changes and it came to the point where we can’t follow anymore the time where the connection speed up.  So most of the time my messages were send late because they were just stuck up in my outbox waiting for a decent connection, I also received messages late and there are times there is really no connection. In order not to waste the internet load, we always end up going to town and staying near the shore so we could use the remaining bandwidth, it was not a great experience because I can’t do anything online, I can’t update my blogs nor upload pictures.

When I was told that I can try using broadband connection with router I was given a hope. It was a gamble, it might not work or we are going to have a good connection. When I had the money for it, I reserved a slot and pay a down-payment for ₱3,000 ($66.67), and after few days the antenna that will be used enhance and boost the signal of the broadband was installed together with the Globe broadband box and router, it didn’t work out well on the first try so they returned the next day. It didn’t work out because I found out when I went upstairs one of the guy didn’t plugged the antenna in the broadband box, when we plugged it the internet speed is overwhelming.

When they returned the next day, they fixed our connection and tried which network provide fast internet speed, Globe or Smart, to try it we have to put load on both sim cards.  In the end, Globe provide good internet connection but the unfortunately the sim card we’ve been using with the pocket wifi doesn’t work so we’ve used Globe prepaid sim card. My laptop was directly hooked up in the Tenda router using a cable and the rest will be connected using WiFi, when everything was fixed I completely paid the remaining balance of ₱4,000 ($88.88) + ₱150 ($3.33) for the extra cable, to sum it I paid ₱7,650 ($170) for my broadband connection.

The connection was definitely good compare to the pocket wifi, I can connect to the internet during the day using my laptop unlike the pocket wifi I can only use my mobile phone.  With my new connection I was able to updates my blog, read news and stories online, I can also watched some YouTube videos but like the pocket wifi the internet connection was not also unlimited it has also a limit of bandwidth to use everyday, I guess it was also 800mb per day because were using the same network but the difference even we received a notification of exceeding the limit we can still surf online in slow connection using android phones.  We are told to use proxifier to avoid exceeding the limit and receiving messages from the network but I don’t think I can afford extra expenses in my situation right now and my debit card is near on expiring which I still don’t know if I can renew it. Anyway, we are told by the shop owner which is a distant relative will let us borrow his proxifier when it was returned to him and so far it was been weeks already we have no news about it yet.

The broadband connection is a good one, since we started using this we don’t need to go town anymore just to connect with fast internet or to look for strong network connection. We can now use the internet in the comfort of our own home and I can work online now without bringing laptop to town.  We are using prepaid load, it cost ₱50 ($1.11) per day we chooses this because  is quite slow if you are registered for three days  for ₱120 ($2.78).

Living in the island is not always a paradise. Most of the time it feels like living hell, hot temperature, scarce supply of water on summer, insufficient supply of electricity that cause excessive blackouts,  far from the main city and especially poor signal for mobile and data network especially when typhoon passed by.

My life is in the internet; my source of living is in the internet but with the poor internet in our island, I am losing everything, my blogs and my earnings not to mention the life I thought to be a happy one.

The other day I received a notification that the free upgrade of Windows 10 is ready, so I bought load for the Smartbro stick so I can used it in town. Using the stick is better than using a pocket wifi because the latter is only limited for 800mb per day, but to my dismay it was just a waste of money.  I cannot even surf the internet, pages can’t be opened and can’t even check emails.  Tried it twice in town but I both ended up just losing my patience and my battery charge. So disappointing!

We ended up going to neighbouring town the next day since we have noticed that internet is a bit faster in the said town compare to our town.  Since we have no place to hang-out with, we ended up in their park and it was ended a bit faster, but I still end up not able to finish my Windows upgrade because my internet load expired and my laptop battery was already drained.

Well, I have heard from other people it is possible for me to get a faster internet if I purchased a router and an antenna but the downside it cost a lot of money about $200 or more including the installation fee but excluded the wires and other installation materials. So we asked for details in town but we are told that we can try it but it is not guaranteed we will be able to connect or get a faster internet because we live outside the town. Very disappointing if you may ask me because if it didn’t work in our house my money will just be flushed in the drain, isn’t it? L

Around two o’clock this morning our internet connection disappeared and  never came back until four in the morning where we patiently waited. When we wake up this afternoon there’s still no internet connection so I have told my husband maybe its time to call his co-teacher, so we went out to call Jade and went to supermarket afterwards to buy rice.

We told Jade that we are going to call her again after thirty minutes after we’re done shopping, so we called her at the street pay phone and she said the technician will visit our apartment at two o’clock PM, we thought we still have a lot of time but it turns out we spend more than one hour looking for cheap price of rice, because it is already twenty minutes after two o’clock in the afternoon.

The technician came with a modem, I think he thought the problem is our modem but when he tested it, it works fine. So he talk to someone in the phone, it sounds like he is dialing a customer service because I can hear his call being transfer. Anyway after few minutes our internet is back, hopefully it won’t disappear again or else as what my husband says we are going to transfer another provider because this is not the first time it happens. Since last week our internet connection is on and off, and today is the second time Jade called a technician.