Cigna Cable is still 1,000 pesos a month, same as last year. The basketball channels bring at least 2 live or delayed tape games from the NBA every morning there are at least two games in the NBA that night in the USA. Channel 5 is usually a local language show, but on Monday, Tuesday and Friday mornings they have live telecasts at 9 :20 AM NFL games from Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights. There is also a Fox Sports channel which had games 4 and 5 of the baseball World Series done live.
The Bad started this past Tuesday morning when the Chiefs/Rams game went past 11:30 PM Monday night in the USA. That was past 12:30 PM Tuesday, so the local news broke in with Tagolag reports of a drug bust in Manila. Thought at first it was a local ad, then I thought it was the Heidi deal from last century back in the USA. But fortunately the game came back in a box about one tenth the size of the screen, but the news audio continued. There was a girl being interviewed who cried continuously, thought of her as a Chiefs fan as they lost 54-51. Could not see the clock, but I knew the game was over when the little box disappeared.
Today I switched on the tv and was informed that I did not have a cable connection. I had visited them on 10/25 to get the cable going again, as we had used it until April and then left. They told me they needed the number on the little card in our box back home. They treated the number like a password, saying they could not turn on the cable without that number. We could go home and phone in the number, then the cable would startup as long as we paid them first. So I paid them 4,000 pesos for 4 months, and later two hours after we called from home with the magic number we had cable so the first month of cable ended at midnight on 11/24, so we had no cable all of 11/25. This had happened last year also as our first month ended on a weekend and we could not get the second month started until the following Monday. I told them about that 2017 incident on 10/25/18, and they assured us that once we gave them the number we would have 4 months of continuous cable. My wife wants to call them tomorrow morning, says she wants to tell them the story in Ilocano so there can be no misunderstand of what happened. She is going to request that 2 days be tacked on to the end of our 4 months, giving us cable until the day we leave. Not holding my breath on that one
Cable TV the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
So no cable again this morning, at 9:40 AM finally got to speak to someone at Cignal Cable. She said she had no idea why our second prepaid month did not start, but she could do it for us in 5 minutes. Unlike the first time we did not have to give her the number on our card. She said she could not give us any compensation for the 33 hours of cable we paid for but did not get. Might take a personal visit to their Vigan office. I missed the first 9 minutes of the Vikings/Packers Sunday Night Game. Can't wait until next month, as the last day will be Christmas.
Good luck with that one mugtech as no one will answer the phone. I have no idea if we have cable at our house in Bacnotan nor internet but possibly. We have good phone signal there so will go that way for net and hotspots if no adsl or fibre when we finally move in next April. We ran that way when we lived in Manila and was flawless. Perhaps I/we are lucky or fortunate as we are not big sports fans nor watch much TV as we find many other interesting things to keep us occupied aside from sites like this (me) that require little load. The better half is a gamer and also had little or no probs using this system.
In my waning years things could be different and by then perhaps things will have caught up a little. (a lot I hope) Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Hope it all comes together for you mugtech.
Cheers, Steve.
An added thought. An interesting one at that. My phone carrier in Oz; Virgin Mobile (uses the Optus network) that I have been with since 2001 have their call centres in Manila and to a lesser degree Cebu, never have I had a problem with prompt service, servility, help and always a quick fix to my query or problem,,,,,,,,,, mayhap Aussie doctrines? Who knows but always good to chat with a Filipino from my Aussie experience.
Cheers, Steve.
I don't have a phone, just a Samsung tablet. The WiFi here is cheap and you get what you pay for. Best time to get things done is between 9PM and 6AM, very slow the rest of the day. Often I cannot get on Hotmail, but this site is usually ok.
Never had a problem with hotmail, this/other sites, youtube rarely lagged, all on PHP 200 for 5 days unlimited and as said will probably be our choice for 1,200 pesos per month if no decent adsl or fibre, will chat with the neighbours when we settle.
Cheers, Steve.
Hi everyone,
In Zamboanga, the so called best network they may tell you will be "Globe" telecommunication. I can tell you personally that it is not true.
I have been using this telco for more than a month, it sucks. Their "unlimited" broadband line is totally bullshit. I don't get my dateline most of the time especially at night. Went to the center at KCC mall a few times but nothing they could do. I mean absolutely nothing and they don't know why!
I even en quire about their most expensive and best package for dataline cos i don't mind paying since I am doing business and need to be connected for my deals. Well...it turns out that their best package is a postpaid line with maximum 8GB monthly. that being said it's not even 4G. Normally you will get 2G and some city area 4G but very limited.
It's like being in dinosaur age again. Even in Malaysia I get 4G and 100G + 100G optional monthly of data usage. unlimited calls and texting for usd50 per month!
My advise is do not buy roaming from your original country sim card or telco.
That didnt work neither for me.
Just buy "SMART" telecommunication. Their network are faster and more reliable.
Just top up or reload as desire when you ran out. best to buy a few P100 loading coupons. in case for high users.
Hotels wifi varies, some may be above average and some may take a decade to connect.
i guess too many users may be the reason also. ( on the hotel's wifi network )
We began with the "Dream" Satelite system and all was well for a couple of years but we had problems with reloading and then moved to Laguna. Here was an advert for "Cable" TV that included a decent internet connection all in one and the combo was not expensive. The internet was fine but the TV films had Chinese subtitles that became irritable after a while. Now we are on "Cignal" and happy, it also has BBC news that we of course watch. Don't why they broadcast BBC America" on this news channel, the CNN do a far better job and I'm sure the Brits are not interested in American politics, why waste time and money operating from Washington?
I have had Cignal dish for about 3 years p780 a month no problems
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