Had a chat with a friend. He was surfing and searching and found my article about Smart WiFi in Cuyo (Smart WiFi Wondering, July 26, 2005).
I’m excited about connecting remote areas of the Philippines with Smart WiFi. If, in the past, the requirements to bring internet access to an area were: electricity and telephone lines, now these are no longer prerequisites! Now we can bring internet access to Cuyo Palawan, where there are no telephone lines!
He shares this story about a quiet town in Tarlac that used to be at the farthest corner of nowhere.
There’s this town in Tarlac that was highly un-developed. It was geographically difficult to access with the poor roads, minimal local commerce, not many new houses. There were no telephone lines, there weren’t any banks setting up in the place.
In other words, the place was “napag-iwanan ng panahon” (roughly translated: forgetten by time).
The pleasant development my friend noticed is the emergence (finally!) of an internet shop! The internet shop introduced the old town to the world wide web. The internet shop opened the doors (and windows) to the wider world accessible at their fingertips.
Now the town’s folk send and receive e-mails from the internet shop, chat with relatives in the city and in other countries. The local entrepreneurs are using the shop for business purposes.
This is what I appreciate about Smart WiFi that most subscribers (especially the ones who don’t get good service) cannot appreciate.
What other service can connect our 7,107 islands to the internet at such an affordable rate?
For an under-developed remote barrio in the Philippines, the internet connection through Smart WiFi provides in-roads for further development.
ka edong
My friend, anonymouse, when do we do Cuyo?
Popularity: 1% [?]
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Which town in Tarlac is this?
Bamban.
When North Luzon Manila road traffic was diverted to Concepcion after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, development in the Bamban area virtually stopped …
dapat mabilis para di mapagiwanan
lol, bamban? remote? ok ok, after the lahar, yah it got abandoned by residents. but remote?
Yup. The description to me by my friend came before I knew what place it actually was.
You get the picture, though, right?
its just funny to me. my roots is in tarlac, to me when you say bam ban its rather close, been there many many times, I guess since I am from there, I don’t consider it remote.
you see, bam ban is relatively close to the end of north expressway.
I do get the picture though!
I remember passing bamban everytime we travelled between baguio-manila circa 80′s. I remember seeing the streets lined with carinderias catering to truck drivers.
The past years, the few times I passed through Bamban, it looks sleepy, unlike the frantic activity of decades past.
there are also some barrio napag iwanan.Example sa loob ngHacienda Luisita.There are so many places in there such as Texas,Central,Mapalacsiao,Bantog,Motrico,Parang ,Mabilog….:)
I think the place should now be called barrio pinagloloko (because of the 1 year contract of always being disconnected with the very very poor cell cites). I still wonder are they still upgrading those cell sites duhh!!!
Kailan po makakarating d2 ang smart wi-fi. Mag ilang taon n wala pa rin d2. Taga sta. ignacia tarlac po ako.Naman!!!
Her sa Paniqui Tarlac, this time marami ng Telco company at broadband/Wi Fi internet na pwedi mong pagpilian. Salamat sa new innovation ang bayang paniqui ay patuloy sa hangaring mapaunlad ang bawat kabuhayan ng bawat mamayang paniquinian.
How can a town located between 2 first class towns (Mabalacat in the south and Capas in the north, both working hard to become cities) be remote? Bamban can’t even be described as “the farthest end of nowhere” since it has always been a part of the ever-important MacArthur Highway system. Your friend must be referring to the smaller towns of western or northeastern part of Tarlac province. And mind you, there were already telephone lines in Bamban even during the 80′s.
You got a very good website, Glad I observed it through yahoo.
{ 2 trackbacks }