Getting Connected

Mobile phones are in the Philippines (almost) everywhere. The network has GSM and UMTS coverage. LTE is emerging. In some rural and remote areas you have completely unexpected 3G/HSPA+ with download of > 5 MBit/s.
You can use your unlocked European mobile without any problems with a local SIM-card. If you intend to roam and use your home SIM-card check if your Network Operator is supporting roaming in the Philippines and what the rates are. Maybe there is Philippine roaming partner with better rates. Or you will realise that your own Virtual Mobile Network Provider (e.g. giffgaff, lidl-mobile, aldi) isn’t allowing roaming in the Philippines at all and your phone is mute.

IMHO the voice network is of low quality (low rate codecs). Text messages [SMS] are called TXT. Texting seems to be the main activity and as means of communications is not limited to young people. Only limitation for texting is an exhausted plan and/or no credit left on the phone. Internet seems to exits mainly in the “Facebook”-flavour. There are lots of social network centred telephone plans available.

People like to use their mobile as a hands free speakerphone – irrespective of their surrounding. This and the low voice quality leads to loud conversations with (in my ears lots of misunderstandings). So TXT is the preferred way..

When texting be prepared for new  abbreviations..  e.g. cu doesn’t stand for “call you” but for “see you” .

Choosing the Network Operator

There are (at least) three big mobile phone network operators. Neither of the network operates does have full coverage of the complete country. As a rule of thumb Globe does have the better coverage in more populated areas and a more business-like mobile data network (GSM/EDGE, UMTS/HSPA+ and already some LTE installations). SMART does have a “better” coverage (at least GSM/EDGE, few UMTS, LTE starting to roll out) in rural or remote areas and a WiMAX broadband access for home users. The third network operator is Sun Cellular.
As I was intending to tether my laptop and use VoIP for calls back home I was generally looking for an interesting data plan. IMHO uninteresting are Globe and SMART prepaid data planes centred around the usage of social networks or time and volume limited offers. As I didn’t want to count every Byte I was looking for a simple flat plan.
SMARTs offer was 1200 PHP for 30 days. Globes’ prepaid data plan for smartphones and laptops is called SuperSurf. “Unlimited Internet” for 5 days is 200 PHP, for 30 days 999PHP.
My plan was to use Globe as my main network operator and use SMART as backup as I did have had good experience with Globe before.

Load

Almost all over the Philippines you can buy a top-up. Very common is “electronic load”   e.g. at a sari-sari store: give the saleswoman or -man some money and she/he will send you immediately the amount as load from his/her mobile to your handset. Of course you can also buy a paper voucher starting from 50 PHP up to 500 PHP and top-up your telephone yourself. Or you can help out a friend with a load if s/he is out of credit by transferring some of your credits. Your provider will send you a text how to do this.
Some Globe top-ups come with free TXT and all top-up are valid for a certain number of days only.  If you don’t top-up after nn days the SIM will be invalidated.

IIRC for SMART vouchers you have to pay a few PHP more than the nominal value is.

Internet Usage @Globe

APN

The telephone wasn’t provisioned automagically with correct settings for internet access. I did have some difficulties to enter the correct settings despite getting a TXT with the settings. It was to tired to see the difference between a : and a . in the APN setting.

Settings for Globe are:

Net Neutrality/Limits of Unlimited

I didn’t encounter any problems with any Internet Protocol I used. IPv6 wasn’t rolled out. IPv4 was nat’ed but I had no problems using VoIP or any P2P (Skype, torrent) for incoming or outgoing connections. And I could view Youtube without the annoying “This song isn’t licensed to be played in your country”

Limited Unlimited

As I have unintentionally tested out one day “unlimited” was defined as 800 MB total data (up- and download) within a calendar day. After midnight I did got the next 800 MB chunk allocated.. This is quite good compared to a mobile flat rate in Germany with max. 500 MB/month with “full speed” (7,2MBit/s) and 64 kBit/s afterwards for the rest of the month (for 500 PHP). A reminder/warning text had been sent, that the daily limit has been reached.

Getting the SIM

SIM are sold at a lot of places. No papers, ID or registration required. Just ask in a sari-sari store, any convenience store or telephone shop for a SIM. Wherever you see a Globe or SMART-banner chances are good, too.
(Mini-)SIMs are approx. 50PHP each and come with some free minutes and TXT, eg. Globe with 35 TXT.
Before paying for the SIM check if the envelope with the SIM-card is still sealed and the card is not past the obligatory expiration date.
Also check if your intended provider does offer any special bundles – or if the SIM is locked with any special offer you don’t want.
AFAIK Micro- and Nano-SIM are not available over the counter yet.

Being mobile mobile

All over the Philippines long distance coaches are starting to be equipped with WiFi Access Points (AP) and free Internet Access now. I didn’t had the luck to ride a coach with an AP, but I did see several Ceres Liners on Cebu advertising this feature coming from the opposite direction.
I expect it to be eagerly awaited as a lot of Pinoys can’t wait to share the latest gossip of their trip on facebook…
In February 2011 I was able to use an AP on the fast ferry from Tagbilaran (Bohol) to Dumaguete (Negros). It was a good distraction from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre televised as breakfast entertainment on-board.