WiFighter

DSL, Digital Subscriber Line. Do you remember that? It is back in my life, and it is unwelcome. A word of warning to my fellow travelers out there. Most of the larger hotels in Asia are providing “Broadband” to their customers now. As I continue to learn in my old age to read the fine print of life, I have some bad news for my friends out there. More likely than not, that “Broadband” is going to provided by the cheapest means possible. At my hotel / residence that is DSL. They installed a server, and piggyback off of the existing telecom lines. That stinks any way that you slice it. It even screws up our phone service. Additionally, all of those great web devices in you travel bag, such as a Vonage adapter, will not work, through a switch, because DSL requires each web appliance to log onto the network. Expect posts in the near future to be titled. DSL vs Xbox Live. What do you mean my Linksys Router came with a 110V power supply. Cheers.

At least it is Friday and I can look forward to cheap beers.

Did I mention that I love unlocked GSM phones, and cannot rationalize any prosumer (did I just invent a word?) angles to the locked phones and contracts we are all too familiar with in the States. Here’s the deal. I can walk up to a vender and buy any phone that they have in stock. For less than two USD I buy a SIM chip, which holds the phone number I will use, and has flash memory that will store phone numbers. I buy a scratch card (load), and input a code into the phone, and press send. I now have a working phone, that has no paper trail back to me. That took me all of fifteen minutes.

“The price of tea in China”

You have heard that saying before. What about the price of a next gen game console in China? I have spent nearly a year here in the Philippines and I am familiar with the demographics. I witnessed the late arrival of the next gen consoles. I was stunned that in a Country with an average income of xxxxxx the price of gaming systems are almost double the price paid by US consumers.

The gamer is still out there. Most malls here have a store named DataBlitz that caters to PC, XBOX, XBOX 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Nintendo Gamecube, Wii, DS, and Gameboy. Their stock of next gen consoles is may be one or two units, but if you have the Pesos they are yours to be had.

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