Penetration

According to internetworldstats.com, the Philippines has 14,000,000 internet users or 16% of the population. So the figures are steadily climbing. Three years ago, it's 9.3%. I don't know if the government has figures on provincial or even regional internet penetration. I like to know how many internet users are there in my province. Or how many internet connections are there. There are lots of sanitary napkin-looking Smart Bro antennas in this town. The service was offered here more than two years ago, immediately when the service was launched. Places like my town where there is no other internet service available is Smartbro's bailiwick. They don't need much promotion or improvement of service because we have no choice. The only other options are either very expensive (satellite internet or the PLDT WeRoam service) or requires above average technical knowledge and crawls slower than a turtle on downers (using your CP as a modem). I was involved in setting-up the very first permanent internet connection in our Province. We went the satellite way and we used to pay almost 20k for the same speed that SmartBro is offering now. So after four years, we decided to pack the dish and dive in the Smartbro waters. Saves us lots of money. Can't complain on the speed. It's not DSL speed but we can manage. As i've said, we have no choice.

I've been hearing rumors that our town, plus the other three adjoining it holds the Smartbro records for the highest number of subscribers. Our local dealer, they say, even received an award or prize for it. A friend working at Samrtbro says that our area really packs a wallop in terms of bandwidth use. It's not a good news because it means more users sharing the same piece of the pie. My piece is getting smaller and smaller and slooower and sloooooweeerrrr.

I hope DSL and wimax consider having a vacation here.

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memehopping:
1. yugatech.com - Universal McCann's Social Media Research
2. internetworldstats.com