ALWAYS ON my mobile

I tried using the ALWAYS ON bandwidth based plan from Smart Telecommunications. Using my entry-level smartphone, I tried out the PhP300 variant which gave me 250MB worth of bandwidth valid for 30-days.

Within the 30 days, my usage were mostly for social networks namely Twitter, Facebook and G+. I also checked my GMail but since I don't do heavy emailing via mobile so the usage for this is very negligible. I set up my phone so that auto syncing is always on so that I get updates in real-time. Although I doubt that the notifications were in real-time because I only saw the sync icon in the notification area activate when the phone was unlocked. I am not sure if this is the phone's limited capability. I also downloaded some apps from Android marketplace; about 4 apps at least (some are updates to existing apps).

By the 15th day, I checked the balance and I still had around 181MB worth of bandwidth to burn. Which isn't surprising really because most of my usage only involved downloading text-based data. And so I increased my usage by using it to browse some sites that were blocked by the corporate firewall. Of course, the experience would of been better had I had one of those superphones or tablet. I also streamed online radio music for one day just so I can use up some bandwidth.

By the last day, I got a text message saying that I have used 200MB already so I had 50MB left. I don't know if I consumed all that but I would say I didn't.

Of course, the 3.5G signal strength matters. At home, the signal was much more consistent than when I am in the office where signal was intermittent (which is a shame because the mobile use is beneficial when I am in the office where I don't have access to WiFi).

All in all, the service was fair. I could get connected most of the times, when signal was strong. I think for social networking, the 250MB for 30 days is more than enough. But I feel it's the best deal among all the denominations available for the ALWAYS ON service. Connection speed is fast enough to my liking (HINT: set your phone to only use HSDPA signal) but browsing was a bit of a chore (but this really had to do with the  phone I was using). If you are on the go all of the time and there is good HSDPA coverage in the area, then this is a good way to be connected.