We used to have to put up with a Smart dongle for the first 4 years in our area..The signal was very bad but no other choice for us in our area.. Only Cell phone signal we could get then was 2 bars on 2G. We bought a 15 meter long special cable with a USB at one end which went into the laptop and the Dongle in the other end winched up the top of a tree with a plastic cup to protect it from rain..That helped.
Then about 2 years ago Globe erected a comms tower that we can see from our house and our cell signal went up to 5 bars..Problem was there was no internet signal coming from it for at least a year.. Once that was upgraded we switched to Globe broadband..
My advice Peter is too check your mobile phone signal with both Smart and Globe..The chances are the best signal will provide the fastest wifi internet speed IF the towers they are coming from are upgraded..
Globe seem to be upgrading the fastest so I would investigate them first.
If you pop into the globe office and ask them to survey your area for LTE,they will sometimes come out and advise you what your best options are in your area.. Try to politely insist they do this as you need to see their findings AT your location.
Wish you luck.
Wifi service for LTE or 3g starts at 999.00 Per month and you can load the sim card in the same way you would load a phone.. Try to avoid contracts here as after sales here are next to useless.
We have PLDT in Cavite BTW and the service is over subscribed with far lower speeds than we are paying for.. I want out! Hopefully next year.