Calvin’s Hub

Last month, my uncle bought a Globe Visibility Prepaid Kit for his guest so she could chat with her fiancé on her laptop. Anyway, my uncle asked for my help because his guest cannot login to her Yahoo! Messenger although she could surf the net and check her mails.

So when I got the laptop, I tried changing the connection preference of YM into firewall with no proxy. I was able to log in but promptly got disconnected after a few seconds. I tried Meebo and I was able to access my YM account and chat away. But when I tried testing meebo’s webcam feature, I cannot receive or send a broadcast.

I thought maybe there was something wrong with the YM or webcam installation so I hooked it up on our WiFi network and test YM again. I was able to connect without any problems and was able to broadcast a webcam as well (also worked in meebo).

It’s definitely not the laptop nor the YM installation. I can only get GPRS connection at my place so I thought maybe it’s the connection. So I told my uncle to bring it to a Globe Business Center and have them test the YM there. Well it seems that even in Makati, it’s hard to get a 3G signal and they still can’t make Yahoo Messenger or the webcam to work and the Globe representative told him there might be a problem with the laptop. Grrr… I hate it when support guys thinks that the people they’re talking to are always idiots that they can lead to whatever answer they come up with just to make them leave.

Meanwhile, I browsed the TipidPC forums for solutions and this is what I found out:

• The Visibility Prepaid version only allows you to use HTTP so that’s why YM doesn’t work but Meebo does. It is not listed on Globe’s site but I think that’s the case since a lot of people are having the same problem.
• They also have problems with bandwidth so they are implementing something that makes web site images not to display at 100% quality (pixelated). What the?!

So for those planning on subscribing to a mobile internet connection, stay away from Globe Visibility Prepaid! It just plain sucks and customer support are always acting dumb whenever they receive the same queries and has the canned reply of forwarding the request to technical support who will take their time to contact you, if you’re lucky that is.

If anyone has solved the YM problem, I would really like to know how they did it even though my uncle already returned the unit and switched to Smart instead.

• P1000 price drop on Globe Tattoo Prepaid Kit
• Globe Tattoo experience in Pasay City
• All set for Globe Run for Home 2010
• Globe Run for Home 2010 5km experience

Filed under: Grrrrr