How to change the wifi name and password of the PLDT Home Fibr Modem

As I've said on my previous blog, I recently had PLDT Home Fibr installed in our provincial home in Batangas. I wasn't home when the field tech installed the service so when I came home, the wifi name and password was already configured. I didn't like it because the wifi password is something that I think could easily be guessed so I decided to customize it. So today, I'm going to share with you how I did it. BTW, this will work for PLDT Home Fibr Huawei HG8245 modem. It's gonna be easy. You don't have to be very technical to do it. 

First thing you gotta do is to make sure that your computer/laptop is connected directly to the modem via ethernet/RJ-45 cable aka yellow/blue cable. You can also use a tablet or smartphone provided that it's conmected wirelessly to your modem. Open up an internet browser. Any browser such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox will do. In my case, I used my iPad so I used safari.

On the address bar or URL bar (on this browser, it's the search bar at the very top) type in 192.168.100.1 (the default IP address of this modem) then press enter/return. It will go to a page that looks like this.

By default, the account is "root" and the password is "admin". After you type the info, click on login and it will go to a page that looks like this.

Just click/tap the WLAN tab and it will go to the WLAN Configuration page.

By default, the SSID aka wifi name is set to WirelessNet and it doesn't have a password. So just clear out the SSID name box and type in the name of wifi that you wanna use. Remember, wifi name should not have any space. To customize your wifi password, first, you have to select an Authentication mode. I recommend using WPA/WPA2 coz it's more secure than WEP plus you can use both letters and numbers for the password unlike in WEP, wherein you can only use numbers. Once you have selected WPA/WPA2, another box below Authentication Mode that says Encryption mode will pop up. Just select TKIP&AES then type your preferred password on the password box which should have at least a minimum of 8 characters (includes letters and numbers). Just click on apply and you're all set!

Depending on how your device is connected, it may or may not get disconnected after you click on the apply button. If your pc/laptop is hardwired (connected via ethernet cable) to the modem, it will not get disconnected but if you're gonna use a pc/laptop/tablet/smartphone that is connected wirelessly, your device will definitely get disconnected from wifi since you changed the wifi name and password. All you have to do is to reconnect wirelessly. Just search for your wifi name, click connect and you'll be prompted to enter the wifi password. Just enter the new wifi password and you'll be good to go! 

Hope this helps! If you have other questions, feel free to comment and I'll try my best to answer it. 

God Bless and Have a good day! 

PLDT Home Fibr Experience

I recently had PLDT Home Fibr installed in our provincial home. I really didn't want to get it coz I have unlimited mobile data plan on my phone but my parents who are working abroad wanted to get it so they can cut down costs on international mobile phone calls coz we can just use the facebook call feature or skype. A PLDT agent went to our home to have me sign up for the plan. I signed up for Home Fibr plan 1299 which they do not advertise on their website. There are other plans available but it costs too much for what we need at our provincial home.

(photo credit to PLDT Home Fibr website - http://pldthome.com/fibr)

The PLDT agent told me that the due date will always be 5th of the month and the first bill would cost around Php 3,000+ because we have to pay for the Fibr modem then Php 1299 thereafter.  The Fibr plan 1299 comes with 1Mbps internet speed plus landline and a free 3 months trial of their caller ID. 

I know, I know 1Mbps is like a dialup connection for others but I think that would be enough to make facebook calls or skype, right? Besides, my aunt and cousins who also lives here only use the internet for facebook, instagram, candy crush, zynga poker and alike. They're not into heavy downloading nor video streaming plus the fact that I have unlimited data plan on my postpaid line so this 1Mbps plan just suits their needs. Anyway, the installation technicians went to our home a week after I signed up for the service. The activation of the service only took about less than 4 hours unlike before wherein it takes 24 hours to get the internet up and running. The first thing that I did was to run speedtest coz I wanted to make sure that we get what we pay for. I was aware that we're not gonna get 1Mbps coz it depends on several factors such as internet traffic, etc but surprisingly, the speedtest result was more than what I expected. I was getting a download speed of about 4-5Mbps. 

I initially thought that it could just be because it was just installed but so far, it has been 2 weeks now and it's pretty much consistent. I'm still getting a range of 4-5Mbps everytime I ran speedtest. We have no problems with it so far and I just hope we're not gonna have any. By the way, I just got our first bill today and I found out that the Fiber modem costs Php1964.28 so if you're planning to get PLDT Home Fiber plan 1299, expect to pay about Php 3.3k on your first bill. 

Smart's Free Internet

Smart recently launched it's free internet promo for their prepaid/postpaid and even smart bro customers starting this month until January 2015. When I first learned about it I was really surprised coz I never thought that it's something possible or something that our local telcos can do. I was like, "Really? Wow! That's nice." I wasn't that much thrilled coz I have an unlimited data postpaid plan but then I still think that it's something cool and interesting. I think this promo will attract more customers especially for prepaid. Why? Hello? That's FREE! And who wouldn't want a free product or service, right? But being a skeptical consumer that I am now, the next thing I said was, "What's the catch?" I'm not sure if you'll agree with me but at first, it sounded too good to be true but when I finally saw it on Smart's website, I told myself, "It's true then". According to the website, you have to register everyday and you must have at least 1 peso balance on your account to qualify for the promo. To register, you have to send FREE to 9999. Beware though. Just because they call it FREE internet, it doesn't mean that you can do everything online for free. It has a limit of 30MB per day which will let you do basic browsing, email, google searches, etc. It wouldn't let you stream youtube videos nor download large files over the internet. I think this promo is great coz it'll give others the chance to access internet for free but my main concern was how other customers and its postpaid subscribers like me will be affected. I immediately thought of my mobile internet becoming slow coz I know that the number of users will greatly affect the internet speed. It'll be a nightmare for me. (LOL.) Smart claims that they are prepared for it and will not affect internet speeds. I became more skeptical about it but as they say, give others a benefit of the doubt so I told myself, "We'll see." When it was officially launched, at first I didn't notice much changes but then as days passed by, I sensed some changes. I am not 100% sure if it has something to do with the promo or there's really a connection issue but I noticed that my connection became a little sluggish and occasionally intermittent as well especially around 7-8PM. My roommate who has a Smart postpaid pocket wifi account also noticed the same thing. Another thing I've noticed is that the internet speeds became slow too. Though it's not completely slow like a dialup, the speed test results I got on some areas where I used to get very fast internets speed has decelerated as well. For instance, I used to get around 20-45Mbps in a Mcdonalds branch in my hometown but after the promo started, I am only getting around 4-10Mbps on the same location. It wasn't a big issue for me coz it was just enough for me to do what I usually do online which is to check emails, exchange messages with family and friends on iMessage, wechat, viber, line and alike, watch youtube videos, stalk my crush on social networking sites (LOL.) and of course, play my favorite mobile game Clash of Clans. For me, it wasn't completely bad coz I'm still able to do what I need and what I wanna do online. It may or may not be an effect of the free internet promo, I don't know, but all I can say is that I saw a difference with speeds while browsing and even the speed test results. How about you? Have you experienced the same thing or have you noticed anything with Smart's internet after the promo started? I hope you can share your experience as well. To know more about Smart's free internet promo, click on the link below the photo. (credits to smart website.)

http://www1.smart.com.ph/prepaid/freeinternet

Take care and God bless everyone!