For a long time, our place has no source of internet connection. I remembered when my eldest son went on high school, he badly needed to have cellphone or laptop and of course internet connection source due to k-12 program, printing of activities is needed and Google or YouTube are needed to search for their assignments. My son used to go to other barangays where computer shop is available. We live in an isle, and our barangay is surrounded by mountain that is why internet signal is very poor. Even to those who have their own pocket Wi-Fi, they always complain about poor signal.
When my son is in his senior high school, PISO NET was born. It’s our neighbor’s business, their house is beside ours so it’s just few steps away. It made us happy that after four years, he will not go to the other barangay for internet connection. At first, the owner produced tickets with control number and password so that you can only use it once. The prices goes like this:
Php 10 = 1 hour Php 50 = 1 hours
Php 20 = 3 hours Php 100 = 24 hours
Php 30 = 5 hours Php 500 = 1 week
For those students and other customers who have their relatives abroad, this is such a big help. Until one day, another neighbor installed new Wi-Fi hotspot. It’s about 5- minute walk from our house and the price of their ticket is half the price of the first one, so, many of the customers went there. Having low earnings, the owner of the first Wi-Fi hotspot decided to change their ticket price, they set their ticket price like that of the new one. Some customers went back to them. After a year, the first hotspot owner decided to level up their business. Instead of tickets, they bought Wi-Fi vendo machine. It’s more comfortable to use, they just placed it near their main door, they just put grills in it for security and the customers just need to insert the coin to register on it. The owner can make all the things they wanted to do without delay unlike before that when someone go and ask to give them a ticket, they have no choice but to stop whatever they’re doing and give ticket to their customers.
According to them, their profit on it gives much to their way of living. All of their expenses came from their earnings on that particular business. Before, the husband is a bamboo set maker and the wife is just helping him doing it. They suffered much for financial incapacity. But today, they saved a lot, in fact, they had their house renovations. They made their floor tiled, their kitchen had stainless steel cabinets with glass doors, and they bought solar panel for them to save electrical consumption, they bought fish nets for fish cage business since it’s one of the most popular source of income here in our barangay. And since our water source is deep well, they are planning to have water tank when they save the amount needed for it.
Wife has a glaucoma, she diagnosed to had it recently and her maintenance for it is expensive and also the doctor’s fee and laboratories are expensive too, all those expenses are coming from their business. And not to mention, they have another vendo on the other side of our barangay, they put it in the store of her cousin, they gave a certain amount for the electric consumption and all the gadgets of the said store owner are all freely connected to the Wi-Fi source with unlimited time.
I can say that this kind of business is better, though the starting capital can be considered big for an average living family, the income and profit is so reasonable. They are lucky to have this business.
