Monday, February 8, 2010

Smart Bro Share It or Plug It is Not Good for Downloading Using RapidShare, MegaUpload and Similar Sites

If you plan to subscribe to SmartBro so that you can download from sites such as RapidShare, MegaUpload and others, I’ll tell you right here right now that you will have a hard time doing that. Even assuming that you will be able to reach their claimed speed of up to 2Mbps (which is impossible) or even 1Mbps (next to impossible) you still won’t  be able to make use of that (theoretical) speed.

I found that out when a relative directed me to a link in RapidShare. It was a video of her child which someone uploaded there as it’s too big to send through email. When I tried to download the link, RapidShare spat an error telling me that my IP address is already downloading a file and that I can’t download another while that download is going on. What?! Am not!

Turns out that a lot of Smart Bro subscribers share the same IP address and when one of them downloads stuff from RapidShare or MegaUpload, others can’t download from those sites because even if they are separate SmartBro subscribers, RapidShare or MegaUpload sees them as one since they all have the same IP address. And those sites don’t allow more than one free download at the same time by the same IP.

No worry, I thought. I’ll just have to wait until the other gal finishes her download. Then I’ll start mine. The problem is, you do not know when the other’s going to finish so you have to keep on hitting refresh on your browser. This is a tedious thing to do. And remember, other users are also hitting their refresh buttons; so, this is a race on who gets in the site first.

Let us say that you managed to get in ahead of the other guys by three in the morning. Your problem is not yet solved. You see, videos are large files and RapidShare and MegaUpload only allows approximately 100MB chunks. So, one video file has to be broken up into around 32 parts. To get the whole video, you have to download all 32 individual parts. Now, 31 more races ahead.

The bottom line is that Smart Bro Share-It or Smartbro Plug-It does not play well with sites like RapidShare or MegaUpload. And since SmartBro does not work well with torrents as I will discuss in my next post, either, it is useless for downloading practically anything more than a few megabytes.

17 comments:

  1. not only share it and plug it but also the old canopy wifi plan sucks in direct download sites

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  2. @Anonymous, thanks for the comment. I had a feeling that the old canopy Smart Bro also suffers the same problem though I haven't tried it. But now that you mentioned it, it's confirmed. Thanks again.

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  3. Just called smart hotline and ask them about the IP if it si Dynamic or Static? With conviction "Dynamic po yan sir, Dynamic po"
    My God!

    alrick13

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  4. @Alrick13, lol. A lot of those folks don't know much about pcs--much less about networks. One asked me the color of my HSDPA LED status light. "Blue", I answered. He then asked me if the power light was on... it took me a few seconds to recover. lol

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  5. uhmmm...Mr Blogger....sa canopy ganun din...dynamic ip tlg ang gamit ng general subscriber kya shared sa IP's....but its up to you if u prefer na static IP dagdag sa bayad....mga boss gamit po kyo ng anonymizer o ung mga ip changer...ako i am smartbro plug-it and i experienced that so wat i did was,,,,gumamit ng ipchanger....i prefer to use ultragate...i google nyo nalang po u995 po ang latest.....may instruction igoogle nyo na rin po....tyak na makakadowload kyo sa lahat ng klaseng torrent sites/download sites ng kahit ilang beses sa luob ng ilang minuto lang.....ciao!!!!!!!!!!!

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  6. @Anonymous:
    Thanks for sharing. If you read my post and comments, I never mentioned that I am having any problems with dynamic IPs. Dynamic IPs are okay.

    My problem is in shared IPs. Contrary to what you said, Dynamic IPs doesn't have to be shared; all it means is that your IP CHANGES, i.e. dynamic, and not fixed, i.e., static. Your IP can change, other subscriber's IP can change at the same time but each still unique. Again, Dynamic IPs ≠ Shared IPs. In the case of Smart Bro Share-it and Plug-it, the IP is both Dynamic AND Shared. Therein lies the problem.

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  7. Hi,
    I just got my Smart Bro Plan 999 yesterday. And you guys know why I am reading blogs about Smart Bro – its my first day and I can’t stand the speed ( or lack of it). Now I am locked in for 2 years! Can the Consumer protection agencies help us out? I mean I know wireless broadband is not as fast as DSL but this is ridiculous, its dial up speed. As consumers can we do anything about this? pls advise thanks

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  8. Hi, Jon. You are right. We can't (and don't) expect SmartBro to be as fast as DSL, or even close to it. However, as you said, this really is ridiculous. Dial-up speeds for an advertised speed of 2Mbps. That's a huge difference.

    I do not know but maybe the DTI and the NTC can do something. As for me, I'd rather warn others from falling into the trap in the first place. That's why I made this blog.

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  9. actually, you can file a complaint against them to the DTI and NTC. I did the same thing on my PLDT DSL because they were not able to deliver the advertised speed.

    I told PLDT to separate each plan by advertising the guaranteed minimum speed and not the word "up to". With this, I was able to get information from their higher officials and told me that the guaranteed speed should be 70% of the advertised speed and the average speed should be 80%. So, if the advertised spped is 3Mbps (3 megabits per second not 3 Megabytes per second) 3000000 * .7 = 2.1 Mbps should be the minimum speed that you will be receiving and 80% of 3 should give you and average of 2.4 Mbps.

    I hope that this information helps. You can check the website of NTC for the approval of their (PLDT, Smart, Globe, etc) services and DTI for consumer complaints.

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  10. Thanks for that! I hope a lot of people might stumble upon this and file a complaint in the NTC and the DTI. Shady business practices of Smart Broadband Inc. should not be tolerated. Their fraudulent schemes are not much better than that of scammers.

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  11. i tried to change by ip using commande lines
    ipconfig /release
    ipconfig /renew

    it didnt work. my ip remained the same. im using smartbro fixed wireless

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  12. I have subscribed recently to Smart Bro's Plan 999 with supposedly a maximum speed of 2Mbps. However, I noticed that the actual speed being provided ranged from .30 to .80 Mbps (megabits per second) only. I have called up Smart Bro about this but despite adjustments being done by Smart, the internet speed remained the same.

    Now I have to bear using this slow internet connection for 24 months since pre-termination would require me to pay the unserved balance of the 24-month lock-in period.

    I hope a law be passed to allow dissatisfied subscribers to unsubscribe without paying a pre-termination fee when the actual internet speed is excessively low compared to what is being advertised.

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  13. using ipconfig/release and ip config renew won't change your ip, it is only use to refresh or reset your connection,

    iv'e been using smart bro plug-it for about a month, and it seems ok to me, iv'e been downloading files which is 200MB's each, i was surprised that i can download files with that size, and not only that, i can download 2 200MB files at the same time without reducing it's speed 70kbps per second each,

    but this past day the speed of download just drop from 70kbps to 12kbps per second, i wonder what happen?? what's wrong with smart bro??!! is the speed you shown at first was just a teaser??

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  14. I have the same problem too.. I suggest to download software to hide your IP address.. or maybe you can try using online sites like... www.hidemyass.com or www.limitkiller.com.. Hope these could help..=)

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  16. smart broadband really suck... i'am currently a subscriber and you really cannot do anything 'coz every min the connection is lost (canopy)

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