Internet in the province

[subseastu]

This has probably been asked before but anyway....

We're off to the province in september and the wife wants to leave MY laptop out there so she can contact the family on skype when we return. Question is what are the internet options we'll have out there. I'm thinking we'll probably end up with a dongle of some sort but what are the costs of this and is it good enough for video calling?

Ta

[sars_notd_virus]

Internet Dongle doesnt work well with VOIP(Skype)..try Yahoo messenger

[Moy]

dongle is fine when its not raining or depends on the location you are in the province..i used to live in province before with no problem for the signal..the cost of dongle is about 1k -2000k pesos if you decide to buy dongle in ph then you just pay for the credit everytime you wantto use it..roughly same with the price in puttin credit in your mobile phone..
smartbro..globe..bayantel etc are just some of the dongle you can used in ph..

[scott&ligaya]

we used smartbro (own dish) at our home beacuse we were beyond line of sight for the nearest mast and the dongle speed and quailty was not great. Cannot rememmber what we paid for the dish but the around 2000 I think

[Steve.r]

We have a a Smart receiver on a mast on the top of our garage building. We use MSN, and Yahoo Messenger with no problems and the quality is great. We both have Logitech HD webcams which helps a lot too. We have a contract for 1000p a month

[purple]

I used the smart bro dongle before which you need to top-up 20 pesos for per hour internet usage, or you can opt for a monthly service of 675 pesos something. Its enough for video calling but really depends on the reception on the area where you from. A friend of mine was using the Sun says its also good. But really depends on the area.

I used to have one while I was in Phils. as part of my business and work.

[worthingmale]

have used smart dongle in tagum before, outisde the city it was bad, in the city was really good

very slow, and not very good, plus for webcam it was useless

a fixed connection would be a lot better, but ti would have to be on a contract.

http://smart.com.ph/bro/

have a look at the options available

[subseastu]

Thanks everyone. I don't think a dongle will get very good reception where we are to be honest. So I'm wondering whats this smart mast reciever thing that a couple of you use (stever, scott&ligaya). I've looked on the smart website and can't find any info on it. Might be me being thick again!!

[purple]

I think what stever and scott&ligaya were using, were the same one that I got back at my place in Cebu. It is still from smart bro where in an installer will come over to your residence and install them using the disk receiver to get reception from the satellite.

Other option is that if you are using iphone 4 or htc phones that supports skype app with globe then you can use skype for video calling since it doesn't take up so much bytes using the iphone app rather than using the laptop

[subseastu]

I think what stever and scott&ligaya were using, were the same one that I got back at my place in Cebu. It is still from smart bro where in an installer will come over to your residence and install them using the disk receiver to get reception from the satellite.

Other option is that if you are using iphone 4 or htc phones that supports skype app with globe then you can use skype for video calling since it doesn't take up so much bytes using the iphone app rather than using the laptop

That sounds a good thing, sounds very similar to the KU band comms we use on ship for internet and comms. I wonder if I can get one of their engineers out to the middle of nowhere? I like your idea of the cellphone and using skype but theres no way I'm paying out for one of those for the family.