Technobiography

Smart WiFi Installation - for the un-acquainted

January 31st, 2006 | by ka edong |

Here’s what the installers did when they came to hook me up to Smart WiFi.

First things first: Visual check for a Smart cellphone tower
Second: Check for signal strength.
Third: Affix the antenna
Fourth: Connect my computer to the antenna
Last: Activation
Done. Finished. Done in two hours.
And then! trouble …

First things first: Visual check for a Smart cellphone tower

To get a Smart WiFi signal, there must be a line-of-sight from the subscriber’s residence to a Smart WiFi cellphone tower (aka cellsite). If you can’t see a cellsite from your residence, you’re unlikely to get a Smart WiFi signal.

From our residence, we could see two cellsites.

Second: Check for signal strength.

The antenna has an Ethernet cable (LAN cable) which is connected to the installer’s laptop where signal strength can be verified.

The cellsite near Megamall gave us a better signal.

If you go to a Smart Wireless center, you’ll see a video advertisement of Smart WiFi. It features female installers with a laptop that has all these colorful graphics, with radar-kunwari animation. The actual thing is nothing like that!

The actual signal indicator on the installer’s laptop just has numbers and characters – things only a technician is meant to understand. The signal strength I got was around “580” at one point. What unit that 580 was, I don’t know.

Third: Affix the antenna

This was the challenge my installers had. I was very particular about where I wanted the antenna: hidden away. We (yes, I helped out) had to fabricate some double-L-shaped pipes to tuck away the antenna so that it didn’t block the view from our window.

The antenna has to be solidly affixed. A change in the angle of the antenna can affect signal quality. The installer has a story about one subscriber who keeps asking for technical support. When the installer checks it out, he finds that the antenna has been tampered with. The subscriber was trying to improve the signal quality by adjusting the antenna.

Fourth: Connect my computer to the antenna

It was quite easy, actually. They just connected the antenna’s LAN cable to my computer, refreshed my network connections and found a LAN connection. We opened up my browser and then I was surfing the net! Un-ceremonious, wasn’t it? No additional configurations, nothing else.

As a precaution, I created a restore point on Windows XP entitled “before Smart WiFi installation.” (More on that tomorrow).

Last: Activation

We went to a Smart WiFi website. The installers activated my account through the website. They also reported the successful installation of Smart WiFi. I was asked to submit some contact information through the website too.

Done. Finished. Done in two hours.

The task that took the longest was affixing the antenna. They say they don’t normally fabricate ways to install the antenna as neatly (as meticulously) as I was specifying. They didn’t have the right tools (nor the will) to install the way I wanted them too. That’s when I took matters into my own hands and bent the pipe the way I wanted it.

Not bad … until the installer leaves!

That’s when I get my first Smart WiFi technical problem! Ah, the travails of being a Smart WiFi subscriber!

Let’s talk about that tomorrow.

ka edong
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