Internet reliability in Dumaguete?

[Badi]

Well I have taken the plunge and will move to Dumguete in March.  The wifi at the place I booked is shared with loads of others, so might be slow at times.  I will likely buy my own wifi package, so any hints on which provider works best there would be great.  Have heard good and bad things about Globe.  How is it with Smart? PLDT?

 

Edit Dan; I moved this into a new topic to better meet your needs.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Old55

[OzeMike]

2 hours ago, Badi said:

Well I have taken the plunge and will move to Dumguete in March.  The wifi at the place I booked is shared with loads of others, so might be slow at times.  I will likely buy my own wifi package, so any hints on which provider works best there would be great.  Have heard good and bad things about Globe.  How is it with Smart? PLDT?

 

Edit Dan; I moved this into a new topic to better meet your needs.

We have been using PLDT Fibre in Talay for nearly4 years now.. 25mbs but usually runs 30-40mbs for P1899 a month. Very happy with it apart from two occasions when the Fibre was damaged somewhere on the line...they responded quickly both times...same day the last time and fixed things straight away.

Be mindful PLDT has 3 year lock in period and Globe 2 years I think. There are also Sky Cable and FIL Products available here.

 

[Mike J]

You might consider having an alternate backup for your internet.  I have both Smart and Globe, both prepaid using load.  I am using my Globe via a hotspot on my phone this morning.    My Smart is in the kitchen/dining area (other end of the house and close to the outdoor deck).  It will consistently get 50-60 megs/seconds but is a high end unit that cost about 10-12K peso, available on Lazada.  Mine is 4G, but they are now available with 5G at about 20K peso.  The nice thing with prepaid load is there is no contract and you change sim if not happy with provider.

[hk blues]

18 hours ago, OzeMike said:

We have been using PLDT Fibre in Talay for nearly4 years now.. 25mbs but usually runs 30-40mbs for P1899 a month. Very happy with it apart from two occasions when the Fibre was damaged somewhere on the line...they responded quickly both times...same day the last time and fixed things straight away.

Be mindful PLDT has 3 year lock in period and Globe 2 years I think. There are also Sky Cable and FIL Products available here.

 

I thought Globe didn't have lock-in period for foreigners and instead a payment is required for modem/installation etc? I'm sure I saw that somewhere fairly recently. 

I'm pretty sure the main providers are much of a much for wired Internet these days but for WiFi definitely worth investigating which is better, Smart or Globe. Where we are Globe is by far the better wifi albeit not that great.

[GeoffH]

I have consistently found that internet speeds (in a number of cities across Mindanao) are on average slower (in real terms) with higher average ping times than those available in the NCR (or Cebu).  My guess is that the inter island cables carrying traffic from the visayas (and before that from Luzon to the Visayas) are running near capacity (or possibly that providers aren't purchasing as much bandwidth).

Either way I've seen slow downs during peak periods as a matter of course just about everywhere in Mindanao that I've been (even though the available peak speeds vary from city to city).

Is it usable?  Sure... but in my experience both 50MBps and 100MBps plans seldom run at that speed and during peak periods are often  slower.

My suggestion is not to skimp on the speed tier of your plan.

 

[hk blues]

18 hours ago, GeoffH said:

I have consistently found that internet speeds (in a number of cities across Mindanao) are on average slower (in real terms) with higher average ping times than those available in the NCR (or Cebu).  My guess is that the inter island cables carrying traffic from the visayas (and before that from Luzon to the Visayas) are running near capacity (or possibly that providers aren't purchasing as much bandwidth).

Either way I've seen slow downs during peak periods as a matter of course just about everywhere in Mindanao that I've been (even though the available peak speeds vary from city to city).

Is it usable?  Sure... but in my experience both 50MBps and 100MBps plans seldom run at that speed and during peak periods are often  slower.

My suggestion is not to skimp on the speed tier of your plan.

 

Surprisingly, and in a good way, my actual speed is always a good 15% above plan speed. That is for both upload and download but only when using Lan - If I use wifi I will be lucky to achieve 60% of plan speed.   Not an issue as we are at 350mbps plan speed so we will not notice even if it drops to the 60% when using wifi.