Sun Cellular offers broadband service

Sun Cellular has recently joined the 3G bandwagon by introducing Internet broadband services. The current offering of Sun Cellular has upped the ante for broadband services in the Philippines.

One of its offering for mobile broadband Internet access has a “flat rate” of 999 pesos. The plan offers up to 400Kbps in download speed. I’ve tried viewing Youtube videos from one of the Sun Cellular shops and I must say that the videos played smoothly without the “stuttering” that’s all too familiar in one of the all to familiar local broadband providers.

But that’s not all. One top of the mobile broadband access, the Plan 999, comes with a Plan 350 mobile phone service (including a free cell phone according to the sales staff that I talked to) The included Plan 350 mobile phone service givies you free unlimited Sun to Sun calls and text messaging. This effectively puts the cost of the mobile broadband access to less that 650 pesos.

To avail of the service, the following minimum system requirements are:

1. Pentium 4, 1 GHz or higher
2. USB 2.0 full speed port
3. Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Mac OS — too bad Linux is not supported, I wonder why?
4. 50 MB free hard disk space
5. 128MB RAM or higher

To apply you need the following requirements:

• Completely filled-out Service Application Form
• Valid ID
• A Competitor Bill or Proof of Billing/Proof of Income

Before apply make sure that the signal in your area is available as according to Sun Cellular, they are still in the process of deploying the broadband access in all parts of Metro Manila.

There are also other plans which include a flat rate Plan 1999 that provides a burstable speed of up to 1.4Mbps. A Plan 799 offers free 60 hours of broadband access and a per minute charge of only 0.30 centavos. This amounts to 18 pesos per hour which is lower than the current offering of 20 pesos per hour by other providers.