To summarize: those who pose with a standee of Kobe Bryant, which has been distributed to retailers of Lenovo phones throughout the Philippines, stand a chance to win a Lenovo K900. One winner will be chosen every month, so read up on the promo mechanics and start looking dear readers!

Lenovo’s promotion also lets participants have a little basketball fun, through an Augmented Reality app called Zappar. If the software, which runs on Android and iOS smartphones, “sees” a Kobe Bryant standee, it will automatically load a virtual shootout game. Players have to properly “aim” their shot by sliding their finger on the screen at the right time; the name of the game is to score as much points as possible.

Members of the media were treated to an overnight stay at the cozy Shangri-La’s Boracay Resort and Spa, the perfect destination for displaying the new thrills of Sony’s new LCD TVs. Introduced were innovations from Sony to mark new steps in color reproduction, sound fidelity and overall graphic resolution. Sony also introduced accessory technologies such as interactivity with mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). This approach made Sony seem to take a different path from rival giant Samsung, whose Smart TV designs focused more on WiFi and user interaction than graphic improvements.

Highlighting the launch was the reveal of Sony’s Triluminos technology which promises to deliver increased color gamut in the new Bravia models. Simply put, the new technology creates a deeper range of colors than the ones usually seen in modern TVs, making colors of objects and human skin tones more accurate. Based on the demo, reds have more reds like red orange and so on, skies will now have more pleasant blues and greens can now display one of the most difficult shades to display in digital panels: emerald green. Tagging along the new Triluminos color system is the release of the X-Reality Pro engine in mid-range models. The picture engine, which enhances video and picture display quality through tedious processes done in-TV, easily makes everything look smoother and sharper.

Keeping up with the fast-paced world of mobile, Sony also introduced two new smart device features: One Touch entertainment app for the iOS and Android platform that lets you directly share content between phone and TV using the app, and TV Sideview, which lets you use your smartphone or tablet as a remote control via a downloadable app.

The biggest game in the field was the release of the new X9004A 4K television with Magnetic Fluid Speakers, designed to be Sony’s elite model. While the practicality of having a 4K TV is still questionable around the world due to the limited amount of 4K broadcast available, Sony’s incredible upscaling technology makes it a gem for home cinema buffs wanting a bigger screen. At almost no loss of quality, the new 4K TV can upscale videos from 1080p to 4K. Coupled with the NASA-developed magnetic fluid technology in the TV’s default speakers, the viewing experience becomes an awesome eye and ear candy.

All this boils down if one has the budget to afford Sony’s latest releases: as these are new, mid- to high-end models, the new Bravias with all the incorporated new technologies are surely to come in with a price premium. Those who are willing to shell a bit more are sure to get what they’re paying for.

By now, you’ve already all heard that Multiply.com is shutting down next week. I originally wanted to write this piece as a quasi-obituary, a rumination on a once-great social network’s rise and eventual fall. But I realized that I would’ve been composing a love letter to a site that I never really had any affection for. I had had a personal account on it for a good 5 years, but when they announced in 2012 that they were shuttering their social networking components, I didn’t even bother to sign in and see if there was any old content of mine worth salvaging. I had, like most of the world, moved on, and Multiply was little more than an obsolete archive of curiously low-res thumbnails and hashtag-less blog entries.

But for 20M unique monthly visitors and 175,000 merchants in the Philippines and Indonesia, Multiply had transformed into something else during its waning years: a burgeoning marketplace that seems to have organically self-assembled without any prior support from HQ. It’s no wonder that Multiply sellers felt so disenfranchised by some of the company’s more questionable business decisions over the years. Their shops, jury-rigged on top of the Multiply social-networking platform, were in fact the very foundations of its continued existence as a brand.

To be fair, Multiply was fully aware of how its product was being transformed by its loyal users, and eventually came around to supporting their newly-minted e-commerce community. Apart from moving their headquarters from Florida to Jakarta, they supported local sellers by subsidizing delivery fees (orders over a certain value were delivered for free via Xend), and they regularly awarded top-performing shops with cash prizes amounting to around a hundred thousand pesos. Based on interviews conducted by my company, they doted on their elite shop owners, turning them into unofficial ambassadors of the renewed Multiply brand.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were taking significant losses by growing their e-commerce userbase the way they were. They had decided to eschew all the conventional e-commerce platform revenue streams and opted to keep everything free (and in some cases, even subsidized), albeit temporarily. There were premium subscriptions, coupled with “trusted seller” badges, but it never seemed like these were priority profit sources for them. The trust badges, in particular, were priced as high as PhP4,000.00 per year, and then rather abruptly discontinued in early 2013. Multiply never got around to charging their sellers any transaction fees, but did state that this would eventually happen, possibly in mid-2013.

It was in August 2012 that Multiply announced that they would be turning off all their social networking components in just a few short months. The December 1st deadline quietly lapsed without any clarifications, probably due to the fact that one could not have picked a worst time to be disrupting sales activities than the Christmas season. Then, in mid-March of 2013, a new blog entry went up reminding users to backup their data – the promised transition would finally be happening.

The period of late March to early April was probably the most stressful four weeks of the Multiply engineering team’s collective lives. During the days following the transition, shop-owners and end-users alike experienced everything from total data loss to cash disbursement delays to missing conversation threads, as the dev team scrambled to resolve all of the issues brought about by the migration. Facebook threads (and, I imagine, customer support inboxes) were inundated with hundreds of complaints, and quite a few sellers began transferring their shops away from the struggling platform. Others were forced by the sheer volume of their inventory to stick around, unable to export their data.

Being an engineer myself, I know how challenging such an ambitious change must have been, so whenever I saw users cyber-lynching Multiply programmers that they had never met, I winced. The Multiply page on Facebook in particular could only be described as a social media massacre: the Multiply CEO Stefan Magdalinski was compared to Hitler, and the Al Qaeda. The nickname “Multi-lie” gained some traction in private Facebook groups.

Whether or not Multiply deserved all this hate (the Internet has admittedly never been a venue for subtlety or restraint), the news of their shutdown on April 26th still came as a surprise to the vast majority of its users. No reasons were given in their brief blog post, although in a statement to DailySocial, Magdalinski said simply that they “were not able to pull it off.” Perhaps the lapsed December deadline was already a sign of the end, and the fact that they had only just managed to start their big transition three months off the mark was too little, too late. Whatever the reason, their largest shareholder, MIH/Naspers, had other e-commerce investments in both the Philippines and Indonesia (Sulit and Tokobagus, respectively) and has reportedly increased its support of the two classified-ads platforms.

From the perspective of the 175,000 Multiply merchants, the situation couldn’t be messier. Multiply shops had essentially been unable to operate properly since late March, and now their primary e-commerce platform was being pulled out from under them. There’s no clear successor to Multiply’s beleaguered throne; in fact it’s not even clear who or what that successor should be. We’ll never know if Multiply-as-an-ecommerce-platform would eventually have become a successful brand, and it seems counter-intuitive to simply build another social network cum marketplace to take its place. In my opinion, there is an ambiguously-shaped hole that has been left by Multiply’s passing, and there will be a rush to find the one peg that truly fits. Those 175,000 sellers are going to have to go somewhere, after all.

(Editor: As Luis Buenaventura is too humble to toot his own horn, we’ll do it for him: His online service Infinite.ly let’s people create their own websites—or online stores—in just a few seconds.

Here is the announcement, which is currently accessible at multiply.com/announcement:

We regret to announce that Multiply will be closing on May 6, 2013 and ceasing all business operations by May 31, 2013.

Multiply will maintain normal site operations through May 6. We will use the rest of May to make sure the all accounts are settled and that merchants receive full payment for all the transactions they completed on our platform. This will also provide our merchants with time to find and migrate to alternative ecommerce platforms, settle all payments on items bought and delivered, and to minimize disruption to their businesses.

Multiply will ensure that you receive all funds you earned on the platform no later than May 31, 2013. We will close the actual marketplace sooner, on May 6, 2013, to ensure that all orders have sufficient time to complete and be delivered to your customers before the end of the month.

Merchants who have premium subscriptions should contact our customer support and we will ensure that they receive a full refund for the un-used time on your subscription.

There is also a press release making the online rounds, which includes quotes from Multiply CEO Stefan Magdalinski:

JAKARTA (Friday, April 26, 2013) — It is with deep regret that today we are announcing the closure of Multiply on May 6, 2013 and ceasing all business operations as of May 31, 2013.

“About a year ago, our local Multiply teams were given the mighty challenge of totally re-inventing the company,” said Stefan Magdalinski, Multiply CEO. “After much effort, we are forced to admit that we were not able to pull it off. I’m proud of my team for their diligence and determination, despite the disappointing outcome.”

Multiply will maintain normal site operations through May 6th, at which point the marketplace will close, and will wind down operations throughout the month of May to provide its merchants time to find and migrate to alternative ecommerce platforms, settle all payments on items bought and delivered, and generally minimize disruption to our merchants’ businesses.

In the meantime, Multiply’s shareholder MIH remains very optimistic about ecommerce in Indonesia and the Philippines and has recently increased its investment into its successful general classifieds businesses there — namely Tokobagus.com (Indonesia) and Sulit.com.ph (Philippines) who are #1 in each of their respective markets.

According to Daily Social, an online news site that tracks developments in the social media and networking industry, Magdalinksi further commented that his company ““won’t be making further comments, as our focus now is on looking after our employees, our merchants, our buyers and ensuring an orderly transition for all.”

Multiply started out as a social network, attempting to shore up a user base in the Philippines and in other Asian countries as Facebook grew in adoption. Last August the online service announced that it would drop social networking services to concentrate on its online retail marketplace community, while offering users a way to download their social networking content before it became unavailable.

The ThinkSound TS02 is obviously made for smartphones: it has a built-in mic + playback controls for the Apple iPhone, most BlackBerrys, Apple iPod Touch, and some supported Android devices. The design of the ThinkSound TS02 is eco friendly as its earpieces are made of wood, has a lengthy PVC-free cable and comes with a biodegradable pouch. The box is eco friendly as well and the package also includes silicone eartips of various sizes and a clip.

I tested the ThinkSound TS02 on various devices such as my Windows laptop, my Nintendo 3DS, and on my iPhone and
i must say i love the crispy sound quality and the lovely deep bass. Clarity and Resonance are very good as well. Music lovers who like dance, rap, pop and songs with deep bass will love the ThinkSound TS02. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate sounds awesome on this earphones as well as the tracks of Fire Emblem: Awakening.

All is not well though there are some issues: I’m not a fan of thin cables as they get tangled up, for one reason or the other, when i store them away and the ThinkSound TS02 has a rather thin one. Another concern is the build quality, the connectors seem fragile and thin, seemingly easy to yank off accidentally.

In the end though these are very good earphones if a bit pricey. Just take good take of them and you’ll love how they performs.

SRP for the ThinkSound TS02 Black Chocolate is Php4,850 and can be bought at the following shops:
Beyond the Box
Digital Hub
Digital Walker

Last Friday, Flordeliz (through his YouTube account “greatauror28″) uploaded a 28-second video of Ampeso (in photo, wearing a barong) during a Passport Renewal Outreach program in Red Deer, Alberta, a Canadian city around 1,000 kilometers away from Ampeso’s base of Vancouver. The video shows the consul raising his voice while confronting someone else over procedural matters.

Around two days later, Flordeliz shared his story on Tsikot, a popular online automobile enthusiast community:

This happened yesterday in Sheraton Hotel in Red Deer, Alberta wherein a Passport Renewal Outreach was being done. Basically, the Phil Consulate and staff come to provinces of Canada for Filipinos who want to renew their passports, request NBI clearance, and such. This activity can be done any day though in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC).

Now, I booked an appointment and was scheduled today at 4:05 pm. The outreach is only 4 days and only allows up to 400 renewals. Having said that, many came just to try their luck even though walk-in renewals have little chance of succeeding.

I came with my wife and 3 month-old baby all the way from Edmonton, which is almost a 2-hr drive. When I entered the ballroom 3, where the passport renewals were made, I was surprised to see a lot of people. I ask an elderly man who was sitting behind a desk, along with two ladies. I came up to him and asked. Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: Is this where you pass your requirements for passport renewal?
Elderly Man: (grinning slightly) Magdodonate ka ba?
Me: (smelt alcohol in his breath) Uh, I don’t think I’d do it today. Maybe next time.

Then he disregarded me and went to talk to somebody else. One of the lady sitting beside him asked me if I had an appointment booked for today. I said yes at 4:05pm. She then immediately stopped the papers she was processing and preceded to get my requirement papers. Turns out those applications were already for the waiting list, the ones who just walked-in.

After that, I went out and got a pen for my wife just to be ready for other forms to fill-up, but there weren’t any. I was asked to wait for my surname to be called as usual policy of government transactions. The elderly man called my last name finally, and as I stood up, this conversation took place:

Me: I am!
EM: Now are you going to donate? (Serious look on face) Kahit magkano Ok lang.
Me: (getting my coin purse and jokingly) Okay lang ba one dollar? Eto lang nakayanan ko eh (with a smile on my face)
EM: (shouting) ONE DOLLAR? PARA SA PILIPINAS YAN TAPOS ONE DOLLAR LANG IBIBIGAY MO? ANG CHEAP MO NAMAN, PARA SA PINAS YAN!
Me: Wait, I am only joking. You are right?
EM: MUKHA BAKONG NAGJOJOKE? SERYOSO AKO!! ONE DOLLAR LANG IBIBIGAY MO? GUSTO MO BANG KUNIN KO NA LANG PAPEL MO? WAG KA NA PAG RENEW-HIN??
Me: (still calm) Is this some kind of a joke? What’s happening?

All people became silent as others murmur whispers of disapproval and disgust. Many suggest calling the police, some say that what transpired was not right, that I should file a complaint.

A lady and a man came up to me and asked for pardon. The lady told me to just let it pass, cause he’s just tired from working from morning. That everyone should calm down. She asked me to proceed to another room where the picture-taking is being held and to just wait in there. She personally got my paper and pushed it until the last step.

Here I am just wanting my passport renewed and I have to deal with this arrogant, rude and drunk old man! Being berated as cheap by not giving “donation” which God knows what will become of it. Being threatened of not having my passport renewed, which I most certainly know that I didn’t violate any laws to be denied of such. And being shouted at like a little kid in front of a crowd just smacks my morale to the gound.

Now, let me introduce to you who the elderly man is. He is no other than Philippine Consul General Jose Ampeso. Yes, the consul himself. Acting like that in front of Filipinos who work in another country just to have food in their families’ plates. Filipinos, who occupy a big percentile of the Philippines’ GNI yearly by their remittances. Filipinos, like me, who dedicated effort and money on this day just to have passports renewed, but this is what we get.

Calling the Philippine Ambassador to Canada, to act on this matter. Or if we may, we would also appreciate DFA Sec Albert del Rosario’s help in ensuring that Filipinos here in Canada are getting the services of the embassy in a straightforward, proper and decent manner.

Besides, we are paying for the services. Money that we earned using blood and sweat.

Jose A.P. Ampeso: Career Diplomat

Before he became the consul general for Vancouver, Ampeso had graduated from UP Diliman (where he met Ninoy Aquino and became his frat mate at Upsilon Sigma Phi) was assigned to the US city New Orleans as a vice-consul by 1982. According to a personal account, Ampeso was also instrumental in acquiring a Passport for Ninoy Aquino’s fatal return to the Philippines in 1983.

In 2002, while based in Dubai, he had petitioned for the release of a Filipino Pastor jailed in the United Arab Emirates for distributing Christian materials translated into Arabic.

By 2012 Ampeso was already operating out Vancouver, in charge of a mission to provide help for Filipinos too far from the Embassy of the Philippines in Ontario.

As a flag bearer of sorts for his home country, Ampeso was a regular fixture at Filipino events in Vancouver, considered as a local VIP, and even weighed in over the controversial death of a Filipina caregiver last year.

greatauror28: Active on the Internet

A Google search of “greatauror28″ reveals multiple accounts using the same handle on different online services, on of course YouTube, Tsikot as well as Flickr.

It was through the last online account, which contains an album featuring the birth of a baby boy dated 3 months ago, that we discovered greatauror28′s identity as Flordeliz.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Flordeliz currently works as a QA Analyst, the latest job in a career history full of IT-related positions for employers including Metrobank and San Miguel. The Filipino now lives in Edmonton Alberta, which according to his story above is a 2-hour drive from where his encounter with Ampeso occured.

Outside of work, Flordeliz loves gadgets, cars, and photography.

The Braven 570 is a portable wireless speaker which also functions as a speakerphone and iPhone/USB charger. The Braven line of products have been associated with style and durability, and with the Braven 570 they hope to deliver a more affordable product line.

Upon opening the box, i tested the Braven with an officemate’s iPod Touch. Pairing the devices was as simple as pressing a button on the Braven and clicking on the pairing on the iPod. Simple and elegant, just the way i like it. We tested the Braven with various songs from the 80, 90s and current chart hits and i must say the audio is very, very good. We moved the device to the far end of the office, with dividers, and the device continued streaming music, much to the delight of those who were with me testing the Braven. We also had the same pleasurable experience connecting an iPhone 4 and 4s.

The Braven 570 that arrived was color black, and had in/out usb ports as well as the bluetooth sync and power button on the sides. It was also very portable as you can see in my photos that accompany this article, very handy to have when you’re going on a trip or have less than optimal space at home. The Braven is also rated to stream music up to around 10 hours on a full charge but we only managed to play it the whole afternoon, not because we lost power but i needed to store it away. Not bad if i may say so myself.

I highly recommend the Braven 570 Wireless Bluetooth speakers! It’s multi-functional, flawlessly streams music via bluetooth, easy to use, portable, durable and stylish.

SRP for the Braven 70 is P4450 pesos while the Braven 600 is P6450 pesos at the shops below:
Beyond the Box, Digital Walker, Digital Hub, Astrovision, Astroplus, , iCenter Cebu and and PowerHub Cebu

Digits Trading Facebook and Twitter

https://www.facebook.com/digitstrading

www.twitter.com/digitstrading

Luis Buenaventura’s startup infinite.ly recently scored a feature on the popular blog TechCrunch. Yet Luis, who has written in-depth reviews on Technograph, said that it hasn’t always been smooth sailing, at least from a financial point of view.

Contributing to the question-and-answer website Quora, Buenaventura responded to “What does it take to make the leap from Employee to Entrepreneur?” with the following:

I come from a lower middle class family and my rule of thumb with personal finances is to always have a minimum of 6 months worth of cash saved up at all times. So if the fecal matter collides with the ventilating appliance, you have enough fallback funds to tide you over for at least half a year while you’re rebuilding your life.

When I joined my first team startup 5 years ago I pushed that threshold to 12 months. (I already had a solo-proprietorship that was doing reasonably well at the time.) I had saved up about 1M PhP as a personal hedge to keep myself alive in case the startup didn’t pan out. I was 26, and had just moved out of my parents’ house for good the year before.

As luck would have it, roughly 12 months later, I had less than 16,000 PhP to my name, and the rent for the apartment I had so proudly rented was 14,500. (So yes, I came within PhP1,500 or $35 of total personal bankruptcy. And if you include the balance on my credit card, I was actually in the red by over PhP200,000.)

Our little 7-man team managed to weather that particularly bad bunch of months and bounce back. We started hitting over PhP1M gross monthly, and about a year after my personal low point, we were acquired by Winston Damarillo and Exist. (A mildly happy ending, but that was just the prologue for my current challenge with Infinite.ly.)

Sorry for the verbose response, but I needed to set up my answers properly, because I happen to think that the question of “what it takes” can be answered purely in practical terms. Here they are in handy list form:

1. Emotional will is one thing, but solid financial planning trumps that every day of the week. Being an entrepreneur is soul-crushing and ego-mangling, and fraught with disappointments, but ultimately what will make you quit is when your money runs out. You need to save up. Precisely how much is subjective, but a good way to look at it is to figure out your minimum monthly spend and multiply that by 12 months.
2. As a corollary to (1), I would also recommend living off your parents for as long as humanly possible. This is easy in the Philippines since we tend to stay with our folks until we get married anyway, so stick with this strategy. It may not be sexy or cool to still be going home to your mom after pitch meetings and tech demos, but this familial fallback is our singular advantage over our credit-card-wielding US counterparts. (That and the fact that you can get drunk for under $4.00 in this country.)
3. Don’t wait for a great idea, look for great people. You’ve heard this one tons of times so I’m not gonna harp on it too much. A good idea does not a startup make. I joined my first team startup because I felt that they were a talented bunch. None of our early ideas panned out but we’re still alive and kicking today, albeit with a different set of business cards. I also don’t believe in solo entrepreneurship, which is why I emphasize “team” a lot. If you’re genuinely talented and driven, people should be naturally drawn to you. If you can’t even find a cofounder, that’s pretty strong market feedback right there.

Bottom-line is that doing the startup thing is hard, but the reason why people play this game is because high-reward goes hand-in-hand with high-risk. It’s rewarding to be working with really smart, talented people every day, and it’s rewarding to go through the roller-coaster ride of startup financials, and it’s rewarding to see people use and enjoy your products.

The risk is what draws people to it. Just make sure you’ve got some cash in the bank before you play.

That last sentence is the money quote, literally and figuratively. Also, thank goodness for the family-centered Philippine culture that lets us mooch off our parents much longer!

According to YouTube user Vir Ascabano, who uploaded the following CCTV video last March 4, 2013, a skirmish broke out in an internet cafe along Morayta St. in Sampaloc, Manila. Why? “Away dahil sa trashtalk sa Dota” ["Fighting due to trash talking in Dota"], as the video title says.

Here are the highlights if you can’t watch the video now: At the 0:30 mark, a group of kids are seen walking into the cafe. On 0:55 we are shown the second floor of cafe, which like the first floor is full of users in front of PCs.

The group starts entering through the stairs at 1:05. The lead person, in a black top, walks towards a user wearing a multi-colored shirt (multi-color) near the end of the room (and seated closer to the CCTV camera). Black top’s companions disperse throughout the area in a classic surrounding maneuver, as multi-color starts becoming suspicious and eyes black top as the latter approaches.

By 1:13 it’s clear that multi-color guy is the target, so he starts standing up as black top gets closer. At 1:14 black top throws a punch at his rising target, which is rendered useless by multi-color’s quick dodge to the left and arm parry. In a display of superior courage, black top withdraws right away, as multi-color grabs his chair and threatens to throw it.

It all happens so fast: At 1:18 black top’s companions have cut off all avenues of escape but are keeping their distance, as multi-color holds his chair above his head retaining his threat of chair throwing. What’s funny is that several PC users between the prey and his pack of brave predators remain unaware of what’s happening.

One of black top’s companions, who is wearing a basketball jersey with a white back, grabs his own chair at 1:22 while taunting in front of multi-color. At 1:23 everything pauses, as a red circle appears around the hand of another black top companion wearing a printed shirt. Looks like he’s holding a  makeshift stabbing device!

The scene resumes at 1:28. White back hands his chair to his group mate wearing an all-white sando, who flings the seat at multi-color while lunging over an unused monitor at 1:33. Maybe he was too weak to throw it?

Threatened, multi-color’s seatmate picks up his own chair. He right away throws it at black top and some other people who were closing in through multi-color’s right. This has the unfortunate effect of making the seatmate a target for the mob attack. Now that chairs have flown, the unaware at 1:18 scurry away, making sure not to attract any unwanted attention. But two users are content to turn away from their monitors and watch.

By 1:36, it’s pure chaos. More members of black top’s gang have picked up chairs and thrown then, and multi-color and his seatmate are surrounded by a flurry of awkward punches and chair pushing. The last chair throw at 1:46 dislodges part of the ceiling, which sways and dangles just above the monitors, even when pushed aside with force at 1:55 by the exiting jologs. At 2:00 the ceiling panel drops lower, killing the embedded light.

The scene cuts back to the first floor at 2:07, and the brave black top gang are seen making their exit by 2:17. Printed shirt tries to act casual, but is stopped at 2:24. His companions leave him alone to face the music, even as he tries to talk his way out of it. He is directed to the back of the first floor. The video cuts back to the second at 2:37, showing some of the PC users walk back to their workstations to log out. Multi-color, his seatmate, and another person that suffered through the attack are seen licking their wounds, as the video fades to black.

Black top and his companions deserve the jolog label, because they:

• Mobbed someone over a video game.
• Didn’t have the decency to take it outside and minimize damage to the internet cafe, owned and operated by people who they have no “issue” with.
• Believe that disputes should be settled by swarming your enemies with overwhelming numbers, instead of one-on-one action.
• Lowered everyone’s opinion of Dota.

tl;dr:

Smart connects people to the internet through the country’s largest fiber optic cable network. This makes demanding online activities like watching YouTube, downloading large files, playing online games, and video chat much faster and reliable.

The Internet is a Tree

No matter how you access the Internet in the Philippines, or through what service you do so, chances are your connection will end up passing through what’s called a backbone. Imagine that online users in the Philippines are the thousands of leaves in a tree. The networks in the country that make Internet access possible are the twigs and branches that connect these leaves into the trunk, which for the purposes of this analogy is the backbone.

For anyone to enjoy fast internet access, their connections to the backbone should be fast as well. In other words the twigs and branches their connection is routed through should be capable of transmitting large amounts of information at a fast pace.

Many Internet users in the Philippines connect to the backbone through copper wires insulated by rubber. This is true even for those who go online through their smartphones; the data they send to and receive from their telco’s towers are connected to the same system. Copper allows decent connection speeds, but suffer from two major drawbacks:

1. Interference. Copper wires transmit data as an electric signal. If a wire passes through an area full of other kinds of electricity, radio waves, and even radiation, the signal it carries may change in form—corrupting the data it was carrying.
2. Limited Distance. Even copper, which conducts electricity well, has “resistance”: the farther an electric signal passes through it, the weaker it gets. This limits the potential breadth of a copper-based twig and branch network.

The Advantages of Fiber

The point behind the 4X commercials is that Smart’s own twigs and branches are mostly fiber optic cables. In fact, over 54,000 kilometers of it, which the company claims is 4 times more than its main competitor.

Fiber optic cables transmit data through a form of infrared light. As any science fiction fan will tell you, light moves very very fast, meaning it’s virtually unaffected by interference and can travel over virtually unlimited distances. Fiber optic is, pun intended, a light-speed advance over copper wires.

From your average internet user’s point of view, Smart’s “Fiber Power” promises faster internet surfing, downloading, and less delays when playing online games. Here are some activities that should benefit from the improved twigs and branches:

• Watching HD (high-definition) online videos: Fewer, if any, loading delays
• Playing Dota 2: Your teammates will no longer bash you for your “sh*t PC”
• Uploading YouTube videos: Becoming an online sensation is easier than ever!
• Video calls on Skype: See your loved ones or friends move in real-time

Unlike other assurances of better internet service, this ad campaign highlights Smart’s upgrade of the underlying structure the telco uses to connect its customers to the internet. This means the message is based on genuine change.

So it’s up to us, the dear customers, to see if Smart’s Fiber Power does offer better internet service. Share your stories in the comments, dear readers!