Plug It! Smart BRO Plan 799

I thought this should have been launched months ago. Smart Broadband Inc. (Smart Bro), a subsidiary of Smart Communications announced the new 3G/HSDPA service in Subic (during the 20th Ad Congress?). Dubbed Plug It, this is basically Smart 3G with a dedicated USB dongle.

So, there you go — a direct competition to Globe Visibility in the HSDPA space. Interestingly, Smart packaged this service with their highly successful but controversial Smart Bro package.

Also interesting to note are the specification of the packages:

Smart Bro Plan 799
Speed: up to 384Kbps
Usage: free 60 hours, Php10 per 30 minutes thereafter
Initial Setup Fee: Php1,999
Device: USB Modem
Lock-in Period: 24 months

Smart Bro Plan 999
Speed: up to 384Kbps
Usage: unlimited
Initial Setup Fee: Php999
Device: USB Modem
Lock-in Period: 12 months

However, their press release says the speed is between 384 to 768Kbps. Obviously, they’re being very careful with the promised speeds and since Smart has not fully covered the country under HSDPA, the 3G speed makes sense . This service is totally separate from the existing PLDT WeRoam service, the latter targeting corporate clients.

On a side note, the unlimited plan is pretty cheap at Php999 compared to Globe visibility which I recently heard increased their subscription fee to Php3,000 from Php2k recently.

An acquaintance who used to work for Huawei told me about two weeks ago that they were the ones supplying Smart and Sun Cellular with the USB dongles. So, expect Sun to announce their own version very soon.