I’m not an expert and I’m not in anyway affilated with Smart or Meridian. But below is my observation regarding SmartBro since i’ve been using it eversince they first tested it out here in Baguio City, yes, I’m one of the first to have this kind of service and I still have the basic (128Kbps/PhP788/mo) account/connection/service.

So, anyway, I haven’t have any major issues with Smartbro eversince it was installed. And since 2004, I only called them up around 5 times (as far as I can remember) and 2 of them, requesting Port Forwarding and IP Passthrough.

Ok, worst experience.. intermittent connection, which was fixed within 8hrs of calling them up.

Second worst experience, no connection… fixed in 3hrs.

and lastly, server has to authenticate me (https://portal.smartbro.net/) every time I boot back to Kubuntu & Fedora (which was fixed by a simple configuration on my distro).

So anyway, every single SmartBro subscribers are behind a NAT. Meaning, almost everyone here in Baguio uses a single Public IP Address (203.87.200.21). I would understand why they did this, cost… a single IP for everyone is way less expensive than a Dynamic/Static IP for each and every cxn.

We also connect via MAC Authentication and you won’t be able to plug in your POE from one computer to another without first logging in to the Portal Page. It’s much more effective to use a router and set it up to connect via DHCP.

Port Forwarding & IP Passthrough isn’t available. If it is, then imagine how many of us would setup their Apache… hehehe, 1 IP 10-20 Apache’s.. won’t work unless Smart configures a pointer. Don’t bother calling them up since I already did and also emailed them… got the same response, if I need a Static IP or an IP Passthrough (Static IP is much convenient) then I would have to subscribe for a Premium PPPoE service from Meridian Telekoms.

Port 25 / SMTP Lockdown is also implemented in all ISP’s and in all consumer accounts (business accounts are not affected). In sending out emails, you need to set your Outgoing Mail Server to Smartbro’s server (sorry I don’t know since I don’t use Smartbro to send email). If you need Smartbro’s POP3, then you don’t have to configure anything. But if you have a 3rd Party or Business/Personal POP3 account, just set it up as usual and just change the outgoing mail server or smtp server… If you want to bypass this.. then you have to subscribe to an IMAP service provider or use Google’s GMail… Why Gmail? Well, as you know, they use an SSL-enabled SMTP connection via port 587. So setup your outgoing server to point to smtp.gmail.com, make sure you check SSL and set up the port to 587… Remember.. it’s Port 25 Blocking/Lockdown.. not Port 587. And also yes, you may use other SMTP providers as long as they don’t use port 25.

What else, BitTorrent? You don’t need to ask them to open ports for you since they’ve implemented Port Triggers and as long as a specific port has been opened by an application from any account, that port would remain open even on the outside… Just be patient with BitTorrent since SmartBro’s NAT need time to resolve those connections… I’ve been using KTorrent and micro(uTorrent) and I havent’ had any problems yet.

Streaming Media will never be affected. SSL/FTP/whatever connections will also not be affected as long as you’re not the server.

As I see it, you just can’t serve pages, games, database, content, etc. And if you want to, use a free service provider…. http://www.110mb.com/ since they offer 2GB space, 1SQL, and Gigs of Bandwidth per month.. They also offer FTP & HTTP uploading with unzip features… Better check them out.

And if you have a connection problems, please don’t jump immediately into conclusion that the service sucks… if you’re using Windows, then expect that you may have consider reinstalling a program, restaking tcp/ip, and resetting winsock. Always try pinging an IP address.

And for those of you who’ve had very unpleasant experience due to a genuine connectivity problems, then by all means, call them up and ask for rebates and they’ll be more than happy to give them to you. Yeah, I did get a few days service extension. Also try asking them to personally take a look at the canopy and your computer…

One last thing, SmartBro needs to have a direct line of sight to a cell tower, falling leaves may cause technical problems. Better use a more stable connection like DSL or Cable (which has their own downsides due to old wirings and shared connections) if you keep on getting bad connections.

Maybe I’m just lucky I rarely get connectivity issues… even during the hurricane which toppled BillBoards and uprooted trees. - Dax Solomon Umaming

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