Good thing i found this site! at least i have an outlet to voice out my frustrations with Smartbro after sales support.

Last Friday i called the tech support to check my connectivity issues, but prior that i already made some troubleshooting just to verify if the problem is on my end. i checked the cables, LAN configuration, i checked my PC for any sign of virus/malware but everything is okay it’s just that i can’t access the portal and the only ip i got is 169.xxx.xx.xx (winXP APIPA). So i called tech-support and the response i got was “there’s nothing wrong with the base station” and “we will forward this to our tech” –generic answers. Ohh btw, they also advised me to call them in 24 hrs for follow up. So i called them the next day and same response - “Sir, we already forwarded your concern to the complaint’s department”. Now i’m getting really really pissed off!

I will post everyday until the time my connection gets fixed. So today is my day 3 without internet connection at home!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Hi if you want to change your canopy settings and read tips on how you can access http://169.254.1.1 go here:

http://www.pinoyservant.com/YaBB.pl?num=1173350780/0

It helped me a lot.

This is not a spam. That link has 6 pages of info including a step by step procedure w/ screencaptures and I cannot post all of them here.
Just be sure to read all the 6 pages of posts first before tinkering with your settings.

Popularity: 28% [?]

SmartBro gave us a Five(5) days (as i recall) evaluation period and installed the smartbro connection to our house. during those five days, we were glad to have an internet connection at home, there were no frequent disconnection, no lags, downloading a 6mb file took about 30-45 minutes unlike what smartbro promises (384kbps) the download speed went to 56kb./sec but thats ok, im not entirely into downloading files so i let smartbro get away with that one.

so in the first month connection was OK we can connect to the games W/O a problem. on the Second Month started to experience disconnections. when this happens we ping 203.84.191.216 or 10.0.0.1 and we notice a couple of “request timeout” after 10 reply to the ping. this gives us a headache every time we log on to our games or applications on the internet we get disconnected a lot of times. on the third month we had a two (2) days of no connection, we called *1888 they gave some instructions about IP and ping and from the looks of it i think they are trying to diagnose if the problem was in our PC connection at home they were assuming that smartbro connection is fine but in the end of our conversation with that customer care representative it only comes down to “Sir there is a problem with one of our Sub Station they are fixing it ” so i ask them when will the connection resume and they answered “keep on browsing a website to check if connection has resumed”. so basically, calling 1888 is useless cause then you will still have to wait for the connection to resume. bottom line, the problem is with smartbro not with our connection at home.

the following months were even more stressful. Saturdays and Sundays we play offline games because we keep getting a “disconnected to host” (something like that) whenever we ping smartbro’s IP because we are again experiencing disconnections. when ever we click on Repair on the Network Neighborhood Icon on the taskbar windows was unable to repair. we tried calling 1888 again but something i noticed is that the customer care representative, not the same person we called a month or two before, does the same set of instructions for us and after he fails to detect the problem he does the same thing telling me to wait cause he will try to check the connection on something and then talks back at me and says there was a problem with one of our substation and they are fixing it. it seems to me, everything they say is scripted. the funny thing is the other calls we made after that call (when we get another disconnection) the reasons were “there was an earthquake in taiwan” and “may bagyo sa luzon” these reasons i can understand. I am a Computer Database Programmer and somehow i understand how things would work but somehow im quite disappointed with the current technology that smartbro really has and how they brag about it on TV Advertisements.

Today is July 9 2007, we started Smartbro last december 25-30 as Evaluation and officially started it January 1 2007. it has been Four(4) days since we last played Online Game Ragnarok Online (MY GOD this game can even run on Dial Up Connection). for four days the connections goes back in and out. for every 10 - 15 ping replies i get with an average time of 42ms per reply and sometimes it jumps to 1342ms, we get a 1-4 request timeouts. Call Customer Care ? ASA pa ako. at this moment i have come to realize why i hear news about Customer Going Wild on the phone , people banging their keyboards when getting mad (poor keyboard by the way, they are not to be blame for this).

so i told my sister why dont we just call SmartBro and have our subscription terminated. we are spending 999 Php per month for nothing at all, thats when she told me SmartBro had us when we signed a 1yr contract for our subscription.

I had to give it to SmartBro company, they really are indeed …. Smart
they made a fool out of us, their subscribers, and they got away with it legally.
can you blame me for expecting they would really give us 1yr connection like they said on their promotion? i havent read the contract, if it does say we must pay a total of 1year Connection Bills, then i strongly believe SmartBro has to do its part of the contract , give us the 1year total connection. because when we pay bills, walang labis, walang kulang. we are even thinking about not paying our bills anymore. >_<

right now im thinking about calling not 1888, but the smartbro branch in davao and ask for someone to check us here at home. but then again by the time they get here they will see AHH your connection seems fine, we can browse to Yahoo.com and when they leave it would probably goes back to its putol2x connection. only this time i will ping the IP and i will not close the ping window and show it to them when they get here XD.

Maybe if we pay the 500 peso upgrade on our SmartBro Antenna they would give us a full connection ?

Why Would you Delete my post ? probably bcuz im sooo right

Popularity: 2% [?]

The trouble with SmartBro is not the speed of its internet connection but the speed of its troubleshooting.

I’m a new SmartBro subscriber and had SmartBro installed in my father’s house a month ago in San Fernando, La Union (The service contractors came at around 8:30 p.m. on a Saturday, imagine that). A week later, the internet connection became errant and then later on there was no more connectivity; if there was any connection, it would only be for a couple of hours in the wee of morning.

Everyday for two weeks I kept calling SmartBro’s hotline to request somebody to fix the problem. I asked the hotline representatives to have the contractors come on a specific time of the day (in the morning) as I was using the connection for my home office. The service contractors came twice unannounced though, without texting they were coming to fix the connection (and always after 5 p.m., when I was out). Attempting to solve the problem, the service contractors said that the problem was with my computer and that I need to have it reformatted. Without leaving a report behind, as I was out, they said they were coming back the next morning to speak to me. Of course they didn’t the next day. I was ready to have my pc reformatted and have another one configured to Smartbro. I needed to speak to the contractors because it seemed that my pc was running well with a Dial-up why doesn’t it with SmartBro?

Frustrated, I called the hotline and asked the customer service for the Smart Wireless contact number in our area (the number doesn’t work). We then went to the Smart Wireless office. The personnel there promised to have the contractors fix the problem. For the nth time they didn’t.

I told someone from the hotline that I was going to write SmartBro a “Letter of Complaint, with a Demand for Disconnection and Refund” and that even if I have a one-year lock in period, any pretermination of the contract would not amount to my breach of the contract with Smart (instead it is the other way around). Someone from Smart Wireless in Manila called to apologize and promised to send someone fix the problem on a Saturday. Again, nothing happened.

Monday, I called the hotline to say I’ll make good my intention to preterminate the contract and that if everyone in our place hears of this misfortune, I’m sure it’s bad PR and advertising for SmartBro.

Finally, another set of contractors came and fixed the connection by replacing the cables. Yun lang pala ang problema bakit it takes too long for Smart to troubleshoot? It seems that it doesn’t care for the subscriber once he has signed the contract, thinking it could get away with the so-called “lock in period of one year”. Well, “lock in period for a year” doesn’t spell a thing if SmartBro itself can’t perform its end of the contract. We ain’t stupid.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I would like to tell you a story of my life when i started using SmartBro.

SmartBro gave us a Five(5) days (as i recall) evaluation period and installed the smartbro connection to our house. during those five days, we were glad to have an internet connection at home, there were no frequent disconnection, no lags, downloading a 6mb file took about 30-45 minutes unlike what smartbro promises (384kbps) the download speed went to 56kb./sec but thats ok, im not entirely into downloading files so i let smartbro get away with that one.

so in the first month connection was OK we can connect to the games W/O a problem. on the Second Month started to experience disconnections. when this happens we ping 203.84.191.216 or 10.0.0.1 and we notice a couple of “request timeout” after 10 reply to the ping. this gives us a headache every time we log on to our games or applications on the internet we get disconnected a lot of times. on the third month we had a two (2) days of no connection, we called *1888 they gave some instructions about IP and ping and from the looks of it i think they are trying to diagnose if the problem was in our PC connection at home they were assuming that smartbro connection is fine but in the end of our conversation with that customer care representative it only comes down to “Sir there is a problem with one of our Sub Station they are fixing it ” so i ask them when will the connection resume and they answered “keep on browsing a website to check if connection has resumed”. so basically, calling 1888 is useless cause then you will still have to wait for the connection to resume. bottom line, the problem is with smartbro not with our connection at home.

the following months were even more stressful. Saturdays and Sundays we play offline games because we keep getting a “disconnected to host” (something like that) whenever we ping smartbro’s IP because we are again experiencing disconnections. when ever we click on Repair on the Network Neighborhood Icon on the taskbar windows was unable to repair. we tried calling 1888 again but something i noticed is that the customer care representative, not the same person we called a month or two before, does the same set of instructions for us and after he fails to detect the problem he does the same thing telling me to wait cause he will try to check the connection on something and then talks back at me and says there was a problem with one of our substation and they are fixing it. it seems to me, everything they say is scripted. the funny thing is the other calls we made after that call (when we get another disconnection) the reasons were “there was an earthquake in taiwan” and “may bagyo sa luzon” these reasons i can understand. I am a Computer Database Programmer and somehow i understand how things would work but somehow im quite disappointed with the current technology that smartbro really has and how they brag about it on TV Advertisements.

Today is July 9 2007, we started Smartbro last december 25-30 as Evaluation and officially started it January 1 2007. it has been Four(4) days since we last played Online Game Ragnarok Online (MY GOD this game can even run on Dial Up Connection). for four days the connections goes back in and out. for every 10 - 15 ping replies i get with an average time of 42ms per reply and sometimes it jumps to 1342ms, we get a 1-4 request timeouts. Call Customer Care ? ASA pa ako. at this moment i have come to realize why i hear news about Customer Going Wild on the phone , people banging their keyboards when getting mad (poor keyboard by the way, they are not to be blame for this).

so i told my sister why dont we just call SmartBro and have our subscription terminated. we are spending 999 Php per month for nothing at all, thats when she told me SmartBro had us when we signed a 1yr contract for our subscription.

I had to give it to SmartBro company, they really are indeed …. Smart
they made a fool out of us, their subscribers, and they got away with it legally.
can you blame me for expecting they would really give us 1yr connection like they said on their promotion? i havent read the contract, if it does say we must pay a total of 1year Connection Bills, then i strongly believe SmartBro has to do its part of the contract , give us the 1year total connection. because when we pay bills, walang labis, walang kulang. we are even thinking about not paying our bills anymore. >_<

right now im thinking about calling not 1888, but the smartbro branch in davao and ask for someone to check us here at home. but then again by the time they get here they will see AHH your connection seems fine, we can browse to Yahoo.com and when they leave it would probably goes back to its putol2x connection. only this time i will ping the IP and i will not close the ping window and show it to them when they get here XD.

Maybe if we pay the 500 peso upgrade on our SmartBro Antenna they would give us a full connection ?

Jean Peter Paredes
SmartBro user
Davao City Philippines
Service Reference Number 1010186852

Popularity: 69% [?]

Have been trying to get Smartbro internet to function since Oct ‘06, its now July. Guess I’ll just have to wait out the ironclad contract so I can stop paying monthly for service I can’t receive.

Smartbro internet presently starts about 1000 AM daily and goes off about 2 PM. That gives me a 4 hour window to do whatever I can. The rest of the time it just doesn’t work. Have tried 2 different computers and then had the parts tested for both pc’s , then had them updated with advanced OS’s. Its not my equip., its the service that’s faulty.

Or……Smartbro sold more broadband than they could service (too many clients). Weekly calls to Smartbro has gained very little improvement. It just don’t work, and I’m still paying!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Hi Fellow Smart Unfortunates,

I already called Probe TV and report our problem regarding false advertisment, customer unsatisfaction and product crap of Smart Bro-ken. I was just wondering if anyone of you out there that are willing to take part in this to call this number 9229273 and ask for the segment department. The more calls they recieve, the larger the possibilities that our problems will be heard. Like me living in an area where I dont have the luxury of choosing a phone line to use is why I am keeping my connection with smart Bro-ken for 1 1/2 years just to have an internet connection paying as high as dsl subscription but same or slower than dial-up connection.

Let our voices be heard, maybe this is our chance… So join me in my quest for smart to answer our questions whether their network cant handle the number of subscribers that they now have or they still dont have the proper technology to set-up a real wifi internet service just like in other countries.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Hi to all SmartBro(lok) Subscribers, Recently I tested all ports if they are opened, closed or blocked by SmartBro, and I found that the all common ports and other ports are closed or blocked, even the port 25 that used in SMTP are blocked!

Popularity: 11% [?]

I’m suffering with an average download speed of 10KB/sec. and an average of almost 10 server time-outs per day… in fact it took me almost 3mins to just browse this page… i had already reported my situation to the customer service but it’s almost a month and i didn’t feel any change… HELLO!! is there anyone who can help me?!… (my location: hermosa, bataan)…thank you for any help or advice you could give….Godbless us all!Ü

Popularity: 7% [?]

We got 2 accounts with Smartbro January of this year. We have 2 PCs so we got each one a smartbro connection…thinking it’s better than DSL.

So let’s name smartbro connection 1 as SB1 and smartbro connection 2 as SB2. so SB1 is connected to PC1 and SB2 is connected to PC2 which is my PC. So SB2 was connected first, it was working. then 3days after, SB1 was connected to PC1 and it didn’t work…they said that PC1’s LAN card is busted and we have to replace it. When the smartbro guys left…we tried to connect the adaptor of SB2 to SB1(PC1) unit and it worked… AND THEY SAID THAT THE LAN IS NOT WORKING!!! so i called in and told them to just replace the adaptor…maybe their adaptor is the one not working. so they came and replaced it…but it still didn’t work, so again they said that the LAN of PC1 isn’t working. So i showed them some MAGIC(ggrrrr). i removed the adaptor of SB2 and connected it to SB1 and it worked…THEY TOO WERE AMAZED! so there, (how pathetic diba) they just left the adaptor with SB1 and replaced mine instead.

The next day… I lost my connection for 3 consecutive days…so i asked for repair again… did some troubleshooting over the phone and nothing happened…so they sent some technicians again…and they replaced SB2 unit but still they can’t get any connection…. when they weren’t able to fix it…guess what they told me……. “ma’am, it’s ur LAN that is busted. You have to replace it”

“HUWAAAATTTTTTT!!!!” how the F*CK did it happen when mine was working perfectly fine the first place. and trying to remember that it was the same statement when they weren’t able to fix PC1’s connection….

So, is it smartbro’s tech protocol to tell the customers that it’s their LAN that is busted whenever their puny little brain can’t fix the connection. Pity to those who believed and did replace their LAN cards coz those stupid technicians said so. tsk…tsk…tsk…

What we did was, bought a router and used SB1 for both PCs and it’s working. MY LAN IS WORKING!!! it did work but it’s always disconnected. whenever i report it they would say that they are fixing their base station of sumthing… and SB2 still isnt working they would say that SB2’s signal is fine…BUT DUH! “WHAT GOOD IS IT TO ME THAT I HAVE SIGNAL WHEN MY UNIT IS BUSTED!!!” so they said…for the Nth time that they are going to send someone but no-one came. Last February….1month of no connection still from SB2 we called in and said we want to just cancel SB2 account (anyway we can use SB1 for both PCs naman) and you know what they said?
WE have to pay the disconnection fee of P10,000…WHAT THE F*CK!!!

Almost every weekend we don’t have connection from SB1, just to avoid hassled i don’t call them anymore thinking it’s useless. but it’s ENOUGH… THIS IS IT!!! They blew my top!!! we lost the connection Friday and had it only this morning of Monday April 30. but the connection is fluctuating. as in one minute meron and the next minute wala…and it goes on and on…NAKAKAPIKON NA!!! so i called them AGAIN! did some troubleshooting over the fone but then again, USELESS. they said they are going to send someone…AGAIN!!! to fix SB1’s connection that seems to be having problem in getting signal and to finally replace or fix SB2 which is now 4months not working. and ung connection ng SB1 NEVER STABLE…lagi DC or fluctuate….as in. kasi daw naka router…e &*($^&%^@*(& panong ndi kami gagamit ng router e ndi nga nila mapagana ung isa…kaya nga kami kumuha ng dalawa DAVAH!!!!

IM TIRED OF THIS CRAP!!! I would like to stop their service but why the heck do I need to pay P10,000 when they cant render the service i am paying for. we never failed to pay the bills they unfailingly send every month. we even pay for SB2 account which is not working at all. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR. SOBRA NAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope this letter gets to ABS-CBN or GMA and make public this crappy service. I know i am not alone. I’ve friends who share the same problems with smartbro.

SMARTBRO should not operate if they cant meet the subscriber’s needs. they should stop advertising their “GREAT internet connection” when it’s not even close to good after all.

UPDATE: I posted the letter above a week ago…now it’s been 3days of no connection at all, even the SB1…called the *1888 3 days ago and did some over the fone troubleshooting AGAIN!!! nothing happened…they said they will send someone over to fix both units but up to now…i havent heard anything from them. even gave them my 2 contact numbers to be sure they get to me…now i’m here in a computer shop ^%&(^%#*&^ we are paying almost 2k every month and still i end up in a computer shop. I AM FURIOUS!!!

Popularity: 7% [?]