Some information: I use Globacom in a BlackBerry 10 device and tether the 3GB BIS subscription to my laptop. The 3GB data plan costs only ₦1,000.00 per 3GB which is good for me. I also have another BlackBerry 10 device with Airtel’s 3GB BIS plan priced at ₦1,400.00. I find that I use Globacom a lot more, sometimes subscribing up to 5 times in a month. This is because I do a lot of transfers and well, Glo is cheap.

Recently, I had a very important webinar to attend and this was ruined by the intermittent connection drops I was experiencing using both networks. Yes, that’s right, Globacom & Airtel sometimes simultaneously go bunkers. And I mean extremely slow speeds or complete outages. While this rarely happens, it sure makes me sick when it does. Besides this, the overall transfer speeds were poor.

Given the recurring challenges and frustration getting little things done, I decided it was time to upgrade, so I called Smile Communications Abuja and asked about coverage at my residence (Central Area, Abuja) and they confirmed availability and explained in detail, their offerings, pricing and more. About a week later I called and they sent a sales representative to my home, a fair pretty lady with the modem. I was already familiar with the setup considering I also have MTN Hynet which is similar, so while the sales lady was setting up my account and activating the device, I was unboxing the router and setting other things up. I had to fill a form and submit bio-metrics to have my account registered/activated.

Within 2 minutes, I received a welcome e-mail from Smile Communications with my account details and a link to register at the MySmile portal (https://smile.com.ng/scp). From this portal, I am able to manage my account, request support, purchase airtime (from interswitch) and convert airtime to data bundles. It’s similar to MTN’s Hynet but has some more features. The second e-mail I received was my invoice and finally an e-mail with tips to manage data usage (this is very important given how quick the network is).

Shortly after, I was activated. This takes about 4 minutes. Smile also allocates 10 GB for the LTE router as a sign-up bonus. I started by pinging a few servers and surfing the web. At this point, all I could do was smile. I transferred a 12 MB mp3 file to this server in less than 18 seconds. Normally, this will take several minutes with multiple trials on the other networks. I went on to connect to the PlayStation Network and I played an online FIFA 15 match with absolutely no lag. I never play games online during the day but Smile made this possibile, during busy hours too. I thought to myself, money well spent.

As of the time of writing this post, it’s my third day with Smile and my only issue is that the connection is too fast. Serirously, you might think this is me gloating or making a joke, it’s so fast I’ve used up almost 1GB testing the connection, LoL. I get on YouTube to see a video, probably one I won’t be interested in and when I’m 10 seconds into it, my local cache already has half the video which will end up getting deleted (data wasted) because like I guessed, I wasn’t interested. This presents a big problem, although not one Smile didn’t take into account:

As you can see in the screenshot above, you’re able to block services including cloud storage, automatic updates, video and torrenting, including the ability to reduce your internet speed. Considering how much I suffered with the other networks, I am not considering any of these options (I’m on full throttle). When the connection is too fast for me, I switch to my slower networks in an attempt to save costs. However, when I do need the speed, like I did earlier today to download 1GB which took less than 10 minutes, I use Smile and just smile 🙂

Currently, Smile Communications is selling the Huawei LTE CPE B593 which supports download speeds up to 150mbps, however Smile only supports a maximum of 21mbps which I have no problems hitting as can be seen above. With this device, you’re ready for any network upgrades. In the box, you get the CPE, an RJ45 cable, the power adapter and some user manuals. The sales rep will provide you with a SIM card which is inserted into the CPE.

While I’ll be purchasing a dedicated router for personal reasons, you should know that this CPE comes with a built-in router with some pretty nifty features including VOIP, DDNS, Samba Server, FTP Server, USB Storage and can broadcast up to 4 wireless SSIDs.

If you are in need of a reliable internet connection in Abuja, Lagos, Port-Harcourt or anywhere Smile is present, do yourself a favour and smile to their office right now!

Signed,
Very Happy Customer!