Globe Broadband Tattoo: Fast or Slow?

I had a holiday vacation with my boss and some office staff just recently. In that occasion, a lady colleague bought a Globe Broadband Tattoo prepaid kit from a Globe Business Center.

And so a day after, we reported back to office. With excitement, she requested me to install her new Globe Broadband Tattoo. I noted some of my observations during installation and actual usage.

• The signal strength depends on your distance from a Globe cellsite.
• The quality of service depends on the availability of the type of signal available such as Dial-Up, WIZ Wi-Fi, GPRS, EDGE, 3G or HSDPA in your area. Unfortunately, the cellsite closest to us is still on EDGE. The signal type, by the way, is shown at the lower left portion of the module.
• Globe Broadband Tattoo can be easily installed on any computer with XP or Vista operating system. I discovered later that it works much better in Windows 7.

Sadly, the speed is just a little faster than a dial-up connection. Both testmy.net and speedtest.net revealed a 100 to 110 kbps (14 kB/s) download speed. Based on the table below, that speed for an EDGE powered mobile internet connection is still within range.

Mobile Internet Connection	Average Speed	Max Speed
HSDPA	400-700 Kbps	2 Mbps
3G	150-250 Kbps	384 Kbps
EDGE	80-120 Kbps	156 Kbps
GPRS	30-40 Kbps	56 Kbps
WIZ Wi-Fi	Dependent on Hotspot	512 Kbps
Dial Up	30-40 Kbps	56 Kbps

Conclusion: Globe Broadband Tattoo's internet connection speed depends on the type of signal available in your area.

You're lucky if your area is already covered by HSDPA. Here is the list of areas with HSDPA mobile internet connection.