The Beanster Blog

If you follow my blog or twitter (shameless plug FTW!), you know that I have recently got an unlimited data plan for my 3GS. As always I have taken the SIM only approach and managed to get the lockout period reduced to 1 year instead of the standard 2 years that most Philippine operators stick to. I got Call & Surf Unlimited from Sun Cellular. Which is 999/month Unlimited data, unlimited calls & SMS sun-to-sun. Pretty good deal especially if you are a city dweller and have a lot of contacts who use Sun. The upside of having an unlimited data plan is I get to be connected all the time and anywhere (reception and coverage permitting, YMMV). In the case of Sun, it’s Metro Manila and major cities. The rep says you drop down to an 2G (read: GPRS) speed when their 3G is not available. I have not had the opportunity to road test this outside Metro Manila yet. Another notch in the positive side is the peace of mind of not having to worry on how long I am connected or how much dat...

Globe Visibility: With speed likes this I pity the fool who signed up for a 2 year plan with Globe Visibility. It’s GPRS for heaven’s sake. Good thing I got in on pre-paid. http://globe.com.ph Sun Cellular: The youngest and smallest network Sun Cellular fared better. I am considering getting Sun Call & Surf Unlimited ~ P999/month for unlimited Calls & SMS Sun-to-Sun plus unlimited data. http://suncellular.com.ph Smart : SMART posted the best results among the 3 carriers. I think it is the only one who was able to reach 3G speed. No luck with HSDPA though. http://smart.com.ph Tests were done using an iPhone 3GS Test location: Pricing: Globe Visibility: P5 / 15min Sun Cellular: P10 / 30min Smart: P10 / 30min Conclusion: Without a doubt SMART comes out on top in terms of speed. Both SMART and SUN stayed connected for the most part. Globe Visibility had the most miserable experience. It should be noted that a lot of fac...

Last time we figured out how to activate our 3G/GPRS data on Sun Cellular network. I decided to do some speed tests yesterday and here are the results. -- Used bbr.com’s mobile site for testing at Marikina area. --   -- As you can see like SMART and GLOBE even when the device is set to pure 3G we are only getting 2G speeds. Truly our networks are sorely lacking in the quality department. -- Sun’s data rates are priced the same as SMART at 10PhP for 30mins of surfing. As of this writing: SMART 10PhP/30mins SUN 10PhP/30mins GLOBE 5PhP /15mins or 0.25PhP / Kb I have all 3 SIMs from the carriers mentioned above: SMART post paid on palm Treo Pro SUN post paid on HTC S730 GLOBE prepaid Visibility on Huawei E160 USB 3G Modem

I posted way back about subverting data connections on your Windows Mobile device. Well I found an app that eliminates the need for digging thru your settings each and every time to disable or enable data. The application is called NoData it’s up on MoDaCo, it’s free and it works on both Windows Mobile Standard and Professional devices. It’s great for keeping data costs down especially when you are overseas and roaming. Once installed you just start the application and turn off the connections you don’t want to connect. Remember you have to enable them before you can use them again, keep this in mind if you have push email activated. TIp: You may leave MMS on so you still get those goofy gifs :D ================= NoData on MoDaCo =================