I purchased a Smart Bro Prepaid Internet Kit last Monday. The price of the unit has gone down to Php1995 from the previous price of Php2500. Here’s a picture of the USB modem of Smart Bro Prepaid place side by side with some flash disks:
Smart Bro Prepaid USB Modem
It’s suppose to provide a maximum speed of 2Mbps using 3G. At the Smart Wireless Center in Gateway, the connection that I have was 400+kbps for downstream and around 200+ kbps for upstream, which is not bad.
After using it for several nights, here are my observations about the Smart Bro Prepaid.
The good points:
- The USB modem is handy. It’s small compare to the ones of Globe and Sun. I hope they included a lace for you to hang it on your neck.
- Smart is the no. 1 wireless broadband provider and no. 1 cellular phone network in the Philippines which can be both an advantage and disadvantage.
But here are the bad points:
- Here in Tondo, the speed sucks! I failed to get any 3G/HSDPA signal! Why I got was just GPRS/EDGE signal! And guess what’s my speed.
That’s as slow as dial-up!!! The PLDT MyDSL Plan 990 that I have managed to have a speed of
It seems Smart 3G signal is weak in my area. If you live in Tondo, Smart Bro is not a good choice. Globe and Sun are better. - To reload Smart Bro, you can either do it via AutoLoad or via Smart Bro regular load. Autoload for me is not good because you have to go to the hassle of reloading every 2-3 days since the load will just last that long. Smart Bro regular load is good but you need to use a Smart call sim to reload. Smart move from Smart, since this will force people to purchase a Smart sim. You can’t load from the Smart Bro sim since outgoing calls are barred. I wish Smart will be just like Globe where you can place the Globe Broadband sim in a phone and use it to reload.
- The charging is per 30 minutes, which means if you consumed 5 mins, you will be charged 30 mins which is Php10. The charging mechanism of Globe is better because it is per 15 mins.
For now, I plan to just dump my Smart Bro. Anyone interested can contact me and I can sell it to him/her at a lower price. Just make sure you already have a Smart call sim (for reloading) and a good Smart 3G signal in the area that you plan to use it.
Richard, how much are you willing to sell your smartbro prepaid kit? any info on signal strength in paranaque area?
Hi Lester,
I have already sold my smartbro prepaid kit. I’m not sure about the signal strength in Paranaque but Smart is claiming they cover the entire Metro Manila. It’s good to inquire about the location of Smart transmission towers in Smart Wireless center. If you are nearer a Smart transmission tower, the greater the signal strength.
i have also the same prob. nasubukan ko ung smartbro prepaid sa friend ko the same lang ma encounter ko sa 3G phone with HSDPA minsan mas mahina (download 59kbps upload 78 kbps ) pa sa dail-up minsan man mas masmabilis (download 520kbps upload 983kbps) pa sa plan 999 ng smart bro. this march 2009 nag subscribe ako sa smartbro plan 999 nila ang bilis (download 198 to 386 kbps upload 379 to 976 kbps ) im using 3 PC’s sabay gamit. at isa pa dito ang lapit ng antenna sa amin ng smart around 200 meters lang. iterms sa prepaid smartbro or 3G’s/HSDPA phones walang magawa ang bagal talaga minsan walang net connection di ka maka surf kahit connected ka sa kanilang network. swerte mo nalang kung maka signal ka nang mabilis. tested ito sa south cotabato and general santos.
News Flash SMART BRO Plug it Now 995 pesos
The Smart BRO USB modem is a small, palm-sized device that you can carry
with you wherever you go. And anytime you need to surf, just plug it into
the USB port of your PC, and you’ll get connected in a flash. Total initial
payment is P995 with FREE 5 Hours of internet surfing. Broadband Internet
use is P10 for every 30 minutes.
Smart Bro Prepaid kit NOW costs P995 which already includes a USB modem and a SIM card. It already has a P100 preloaded broadband load which can be used up to 5 hours of high-speed broadband internet use.
http://smartbroplugit.wordpress.com/
Also read my review of SMART BRO plug it and share it along with antenna and manual comments.
Selling Smart Bro Prepaid Kit 995 ang price
Don’t be victimized by SMartBro PlugIt, even its new Plan999. It’s very slow during peakhours even in areas like ours which is near the tower. 3KBytes/sec to a crawl download. Can hardly open web pages. Get reliable DSL lines.
i bought my smart bro in 2008. i don’t remember encountering problems like this. guess I’m lucky? NO I’M NOT. because my problem is much bigger than having a slow signal or something. my laptop crashed a few hours ago because it’s not compatible with windows 7 ultimate and i can’t download the drivers because the download time is 2 days!
wifi is much okay. at least download time is much better than two days. and to think that i’m unlimited for 5 days. that sucks really.
i got a little nervous when I couldn’t reload my account using a smartbro prepaid card. i tried all possible process that smartbro website has but it kept on getting me : SMS BARRED or “failed”.
I only use my smarbro for emergency, so I purchased prepaid cards and reload only when needed. if I only knew I’ll go through the hassles of reloading, I should have purchased GLOBE instead.
so I’ll just give this to my sister instead.