Here’s a very welcome service to the mobile interenet scene: Surf Unlimited data plans .

The typical charging is P10/ 30 mins.

By subscribing to data plans, you get a “wholesale” discount for subscribing to a data plan for many hours. You will no longer need to count the minutes you’re using the Internet on your phone.

The new data plans give you more hours at a more affordable rate:

• Unli Surf Daily  P50 / day 
• Unli Surf Weekly  P300 / Week 
• Unli Surf Monthly  P1,200 / month 

This works well for me because I access the internet from my phone many times a day, at various hours of the day.

If you’re going to access the Internet for more than 5 different times in a day, or if you’re going to access the internet for more than 2.5 hours continuously, the Surf Unlimited packages will work well for you.

This service is available for Smart subscribers. Using your mobile phone, visit m.smart.com.ph/surf to subscribe to a data plan. For more details, visit http://smart.com.ph/buddy/promos/UNLI+Surf+Plans.htm .

Surf na!
ka edong

Here’s a video demo on how to access Facebook via mobile Internet.

In the video, I’ll show you how to access Facebook via mobile Internet (m.facebook.com) .

I’ll show you what Facebook Mobile looks like in a mobile phone.

Enjoy the video and do leave a note to give feedback. Cheers!

ka edong
follow me, it’s alright: http://www.twitter.com/ka_edong

Facebook Mobile Internet demo by Ka Edong

I was in a two-day seminar last week. And when I get back to work, I find out there was a flurry of activity in field of the Mobile Internet data plans.

Smart came out with Mobile Internet data plans last week, both for pre-paid and post-paid.

Smart Buddy All Day Surf

The features of Smart’s All day surf data plans:

• Lowest per-minute rate in the market
• Available for prepaid subscribers
• First with status inquiry facility, wherein you can check your remaining minutes

Rates:

• Regular Internet access is at P10/ half hour
• Budget surf is at P50 / 5 hours
• Daily surf is at P100 / 12 hours

With the Smart Mobile Internet data plan, you can do your surfing for as low as Php 0.14 per minute .

You can check your mobile internet data plan status  to know your current subscription plan and time remaining. You can check using your mobile or by logging on to the Smart portal.

See detailed guidelines and mechanics at the Smart website.

For new Smart Gold post-paid subscribers, they get an hour of free mobile internet per month. See details of UNO promo on the Smart website.

Other Mobile Internet data plans

For Globe subscribers, I still see a rate of P5 for 15 minutes. I believe they came out with another plan, but I don’t see it in their website. You can check out Globe’s mobile data plans on their website (log-in required).

Updates (29April):

• Here’s the link to Globe’s mobile surfing plans. Thanks Reggie for the link!
• Write-up on Globe’s mobile surfing plans at Technogra.ph .
• And another from my online buddy Kapitan Jepoy .

For Sun subscribers, I couldn’t find info on the web regarding their mobile internet data plans. Can anybody share a link? (If you have more info, please share via comments section below)

Update (May 7):  P10/30 minutes  on mobile internet. From my friend Reggie:

i forgot to mention, regarding Sun’s rates, they are now offering Php 10 per 30 minutes and can even go as low as Php 6.25. here’s the url: http://www.suncellular.com.ph/broadband.php

Value for money

To see which data plan works best for you, you’ll need to consider a few things:

• how much surfing time are you expecting to do?
• how much are you willing to pay to get a data plan?

Peso-by-peso, you’ll be able to compute which plan will give you the best value for money. For example, Smart’s P100/12 hours gives you  Php0.14 per minute. You can make a similar computation for the other data plans.

You’ll also have to see how much you’ll need to shell out to avail of the data plan at that per-minute rate. Choose wisely.

Mobile Internet getting more and more affordable

The trend I see now is that mobile internet access is beginning to become more and more affordable. The past benchmark was the next-door internet shop which typically would provide Internet access at P20 per hour. That’s as much as the regular mobile internet access is: P10/30 mins.

Now, Smart’s data plan is giving it at P8.30 per hour.

Of course the browsing experience will always be different for desktop and for mobile phone.

But at the end of it all, we’re providing internet access to more and more Filipinos.

Some day soon, many more Filipinos will be accessing the Internet for the very first time through the mobile phone and not through the computer in an Internet shop. That day is coming! Soooon!

ka edong
way of the peaceful mobile warrior

I wrote about Mofuse last week. Mofuse lets users create their site for mobile phones.

For Technobiography, I used a different service tor create a mobile blog: WordPress Mobile.

WordPress Mobile is the plugin I used for Technobiography.com on mobile.

Take a look, visit http://m.technobiography.com . In fact, you could just key in “technobiography.com” on your mobile phone and you’ll get the mobile site — automatically rendered for the mobile phone.

It’s an easy install, just download the plugin, put it in wordpress plugins folder, activate via dashboard, and you’re all set.

Anybody using their mobile phone to access your website will be given a mobile-friendly page. There are a couple of textlink-ads at the bottom of the page. Revenues from these ads go to the maker of the plugin.

The plugin has some settings on WordPress dashboard which tells how the plugin will render your mobile page (e.g. background color).

This plugin is very easy to use. I’d recommend it to any wordpress user accustomed to using plugins .Visit http://wordpressmobile.mobi/ for WordPress Mobile.

ka edong
edong mobile

I tried out MoFuse today, testing if it renders a good mobile blog.

MoFuse is a mobile site creation application for content publishers like bloggers. To create a mobile-friendly version of your blog please access us from a desktop computer.

Mofuse

It’s easy creating the MoFuse account. Just jump over to www.mofuse.com and create an account in a couple of seconds.

When you have an account, you’ll be able to Launch a Mobile Site where you submit the title of your mobile site, the url (in the format mysite.mofuse.mobi), the RSS Title and the RSS feed URL.

I downloaded the WordPress plugin and activated it on my wordpress dashboard. I’m not sure though whether the mobile site requires the plugin to be activated.

One of the features is rendering your blog for the iPhone.

Nevertheless, I’ve rendered www.edwinsoriano.com blog for mobile.
Visit my mobile site using your mobile phone:  http://edwinsoriano.mofuse.mobi

On, Liway (my Sony Ericsson P990i) using Opera Mini, the mobile site shows an advertisement on the top-most part of the mobile browse, then displays links to individual blog articles.

There’s a revenue share using Mofuse. In essence, they run the Google Ads and they give the blogger a share of the site.

Try out Mofuse if you want to have a mobile site.

ka edong
mo money

I used another wordpress plugin for Technobiography on mobile phone. That’s my next article.

Smart is running a promo. Smart subscribers get a chance to win a Nokia phones or when they activate and use their Mobile Internet.

See the Smart website for more details >>

ka edong

Disclosure: I work for Smart.