My Review of PLDT's Ultera (Location: City of Biñan) - Subscribe If You Like Paying for 256Kbps a Month

Living in my hometown of Biñan in Laguna has many advantages. For me, it's near the metro, relatively a short distance to the airport, close to provincial towns and almost quiet among others. One thing that I absolutely hate though is the lack of good internet connection. I work from home for an IT company so a reliable and fast internet connection is a must. There are several options for people in Biñan like me but all of them have caveats.  I've listed some of them (if not all) on the bottom in case you're interested.

PLDT's Ultera is what we ended up being with.  It's the lesser of the evils at least in my village.  

I'll cut to the chase, Ultera is very good.  For the 3 weeks I have been using it, it was fast and reliable.  That is, if we HAVEN'T REACHED THE CAP YET.  Once you reached it, connection is throttled to 256Kbps.  Yes, you read that right.  Hello 2007 or so!  Yup, that was my internet speed almost a DECADE ago.  Oh, and we need to reboot (or "power cycle" as the customer representatives want me to call it) our modem everyday or else even though throttling has been lifted due to daily resets, our connection will still be pegged to 256Kbps.

Since we have the 5Mbps plan, our cap is at 1.65GB.  Once we reached that, our connection is throttled to stone age speed of 256Kbps.  I've heard early adopters were throttled to 30% of their plan.  Too bad that is no longer the case when we applied.

We have to put in our application twice.  Not sure why our first application didn't go through.  The agent texts us saying that we will have our connection soon for the first two weeks and then radio silence.  After 2 months or so, we saw a PLDT booth at SM Sta. Rosa and decided to apply.  A nice and very accommodating middle aged mom greeted me and my wife as we place our second application.  After a week, we had our connection.  

We were fitted with an outdoor antenna which connects to the router. If I understand it right, inside the antenna's box is the Smart simcard capable of LTE.  It connects to the router via an Ethernet cable.

Here's my speedtest without capping (again, we are on 5Mbps plan):

And below is the speedtest result after reaching the cap:

Pings are good even when capped.  But c'mon, 256Kbps?  Seriously?!?

Bottom line: if you can, do yourself a favor and go to another company (except for INTELCO and Globe's Wimax).  To me, since daily volume allowance is very low regardless of what plan you are in, it feels like you are paying for a 256Kbps connection as that will be your connection for the most time of the day.  Ask if Globe's Tattoo @Home (either via LTE or wired) is available in your area and you'll be much happier.  

Another thing, some say that unless you download a lot, 1.65GB should be enough for a day.  I find this very untrue unless you're a single user.  In our household of 7 with each his/her own devices, if no one downloads or view streaming sites, 1.65GB would still only last a couple of hours.  Just with our devices continuously checking for email, viewing Facebook and occasional browsing, 1.65GB is nothing.  Yea, PLDT will say you can send hundreds if not thousands of email for 1.65GB which is really true in a perfect environment but that is just not the case.  Laptops checks and downloads anti-virus definition and updates everyday.  Smartphones do the same by checking emails and updates their apps every now and then.  Same story with tablets.  If you like streaming sites or have a relative abroad, just stay away!  

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Side notes: 

Other Internet Service Providers that I know of in Biñan:

• INTELCO - they have the most expensive plans I have ever seen!  You be the judge (keyword here is "Up to"), prices are as of time of writing:
  • Up to 384 Kbps - P788.00
  • Up to 512 Kbps - P1454.88 Up to 768 Kbps - P1848.00 Up to 1 Mbps - P2,000.00 
  • Up to 2Mbps - P2,750.00
• Globe - this comes with three varieties:
• wired DSL - I've been asking for years but they don't have a free slot on their junction box on our street so no-go.
• wireless (via LTE) - no LTE signal
• Wimax - very prone to hacking.  My aunt had it but even though you can setup extra security on it to shield yourself from hackers using your MAC address, it was pointless in the end.
• Digitel - we have been their loyal customer for years and years.  After PLDT bought them, their DSL performance turned downhill.  It's just better to move on to another company.  We have a 3Mbps plan but average speed is .77Mbps.  That's just a shade above a quarter of what we are supposed to get!
• Royal Cable - they don't have facilities in our subdivision. :(
• PLDT - they have wired and wireless:
• wired - nope, not allowed here.  Rumor mill says it's because of Intelco and the current set of local politicians.  I don't really know.  Just hit google with internet and Biñan and you'll see what I mean.
• wireless - SmartBro is now being replaced by Ultera which is what I reviewed here.

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Update: 

My wife and I moved out of Biñan for more than a year now so I'm not familiar with available ISPs and plans offered there anymore.  However, a couple of months ago my sister shared with me a Facebook post that shows PLDT will be coming to town.  A few months later, City of Biñan Public Information Office's Facebook page shows the opening of PLDT in Pavilion Mall.  So maybe this is good news?  I do hope so! :)  PLDT is not perfect but the more ISP there are, the better for customers in general!