PLDT’s WatchPad “Big Ticket Service” Sucks!

· by · in Technology. ·

After subscribing to the PLDT WatchPad “Big Ticket Service” this week, i was expecting i would be ahead watching the Pacquiao-Mosley Fight over WatchPad than those who were watching the free TV telecast.

To my dismay, the Big Ticket Service is a BIG FAILURE at the crucial time when the fight had been going on. The WatchPad connection was intermittent and the video got frozen from time-to-time. On the average, we were only able to watch continuous video feed at 30 seconds. Most of the time, the streaming was kept on buffering.

Check the video below i’d took this morning while watching the fight on my PC.


PLDT, through its agents, promised an enhanced net speed over WatchPad at around 1.2Mbps once you subscribed to the Big Ticket Service. As early as Thursday (May 5), i tested the net speed of the WatchPad and i was excited that i’d got more than 2Mbps download speed. Check my post about it here.

Aside from the 1.2Mbps speed on WatchPad, the net speed for other local sites would also be enhanced if you’re subscribed to the Big Ticket Service.

However, on the eve of the Pacquiao-Mosley fight, i’d noticed a dismal net performance of my connection that resulted the WatchPad to crawl. I made a status post about it on Facebook.

Early morning on the fight day, i’d experienced poor net connection for all sites and the WatchPad is kept on freezing. I check the net speed and it only register a dismal 100+kpbs connection. When PLDT started streaming on WatchPad the Pacquiao-Mosley fight, i can hardly log in to several sites including the http://www.speedtest.net site as shown below from my laptop.

I already closed the rest of the sites on my browser tabs but still got the failed connection above. So, i decided to turn off my laptop so that the connection will concentrate on my PC where we intend to watch the fight. But still the video stream on my PC was kept on freezing and buffering. Again, check the video above.

Also, the streaming was not live but there was a substantial delay. While the fight was over as heard over the radio, it’s still at the middle of the 12th round.

Later in the afternoon on Sunday, i checked again the net speed and got higher notches.

I concluded that our experience is maybe due to the inability of PLDT to withstand the large subscription of the Big Ticket Service and the WatchPad during the fight hour. And maybe the net speed on PLDT’s DSL was compromised to give way to the WatchPad viewers.

I documented our experience to back up this post and my subsequent complaint to PLDT. I had promised not to pay the extra P150 for the failed Big Ticket service.

What is your WatchPad experience today?

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10 responses on “PLDT’s WatchPad “Big Ticket Service” Sucks!”

  2. positive : at least for all the fights of pacquiao that were aired through watchpad we were not able to experience any buffering issues Negative : first problem, after the fight the regular channels don’t come back, i re-installed, i cleared cookies etc. and the channels would still not come back, i called customer care the first time i experienced this it took them 2 weeks to resolve ; the 2nd time it happened it took nearly 5 months before they got the channels back to my watchpad…. the thing is, they already solved that the first time, why the hell are they having problems the 2nd time this happened, don’t they have any logs to use as reference? throughout the course of waiting for the channels to come back, i received calls from tech support asking repetitive questions, making me do things i have already done which they have already suggested in the past, then i would not hear from them for a long period of time, then i email and they would reply with a very apologetic reply, and this cycle took almost 5 months… for which during that duration i was still paying for the big ticket??? when they called to confirm i already instructed them to stop the big ticket the day after the fight because i would not be needing it, and with the problem i think it’s obvious that the BIG TICKET has NO USE so why still bill me? this sucks to the 100th power! and up to this day that everything has been ok i still am getting billed for the big ticket, this is such a big load of crap!

  3. How to cancel the subscription to their Watchpad BIG Ticket subscription? I subscribed last fight ni pacquiao-marquez i thought i billed during that month pero meron pala bill next month… Paano e cancel yun? Thanks.

  4. This is really a big fail as I see it. This is a very long issue before since PLDT Watchpad was started 2 years ago. Before wala pa silang registration o bayad, nag promise sila ng live na laban, on the eve of the fight ayun hindi na ako maka log in. Only to find out that their network was flooded with huge number of users. Yun pala eh trial lang kaya andami rin nadismaya.

    In fairness naman sa PLDT, Id been watching 3 of Pacman’s fight from this watchpad in time of Cotto, Clottey and Margarito. Ok naman, naka register ako naka-konek pero inonline ko yung watchpad 2 hours before the fight. Hindi ko na log out yun saka wala pang speed boost na nangyari ngayong taon na meron na bayad. Hindi na ako nag subscribed jan..

    Ang nakita kong kapalpakan jan is yung speed booster. As far as I know, dapat once na registered ka sa big ticket, dapat tataasan nila ang bandwith mo prior sa araw ng laban and seal it for the rest of your subscription. Somewhat they said to you na meron kang additional 1mbps (or lucky for you, oversubscribed bandwith) for the price of 150 pesos a month.

    Ang mali kasi dito, kapag inadjust nila “technically and intentionally” ang profile node bandwith mo sa DSL, it should be in accordance with the provisionary speed for the speed booster. i.e. kung 1mbps ka, tapos provisionary speed is .5mbps for the booster, dapat 1.5mbps or ~+-4 to 10% margin error ng 1.5mbps speed na binigay sa iyo. Ang nangyayari, dahil speed boost yan, hindi nasunod yung provisionary speed for speed booster for those watchpad users subscribed to big ticket. May iba umabot up to 8mbps ha! (Maniwala ka sa akin, may oversubscribed speed) so since shared network ang DSL natin, kung ikaw ay 1.5mbps at yung isa is 8mbps in your area wherein the shared network is can only accomodate 10mbps in a capacity of 10 DSL subscribers, yung 8 doon, hindi na makakapasok sa watchpad since yung isang naka 8mbps already eats up all the alloted bandwith intended for the event. (Sorry for complicated analogy, i hope you get my point even very technical).

    Lastly, PLDT Watchpad as far as I know doesnt utilized P2P technology (in torrent) kahit 512kbps ka lang, at yung mga seeders mo eh more than 1mbps at lahat sila connected sa iisang DHT, smooth ang connection mo… Sa watchpad kasi speed boost lang.

    • Notwithstanding the technical capability of PLDT WatchPad which did not deliver, the failed promise to let us enjoy the fight was heavier. Let the NTC work on this to protect the consumers.

      • Matagal ng issue kay PLDT yan but unfortunately, NTC focus in some more “lucrative” matters. Although NTC has already sees this issue alarming, wala lang kasi kapag nagreklamo ang subscriber sa PLDT, may iba naayos naman kaya hindi nagiging issue. Maganda lang sa big ticket na yan eh binigyan ka ng additional 2mbps speed. So kung nagbabayad ka ng 990 per month plus 150 sa speed boost, ok lang kasi mabilis ang speed mo. Try to use other speedtesters around not only speedtest since it is not accurate. Try using actual download managers or you use torrent to really check the bandwith provided for you and you will see the difference.

        Nung laban ni Pacman, nanood ako sa sopcast and guess what, smooth ang streaming, kaya lang Romanian yung feed na nakuha ko. Ok na rin kasi nakapanood na ako ng maayos. Nung may bayad na kasi yan, di na ako nag subscribe.

  6. sir ako rin po ganyan, hindi nga ako naka nood ng pacquiao vs mosley, pampalubag loob nalang na bumilis at umaabot ng 1.5mbps, and guest what nag reklamo ako kaninang umaga sa customer report nila para taasan ang speed dahil ang promise ng big ticket is additional 1MBPS, and guess what,nabawasan pa speed ko and ang bagal na ng local sites :( ano ba yan, parang ang laking fraud/scam nito, akala ko ako lang nakaka experience nito, palakihin natin ito bro at paingayin para makakuha ng pansin sa general public and sa PLDT mismo.. tsk tsk.. thanks for the write up bro :) naeexperience ko rin yan ngayon

  7. I should say natagam na ko anang WatchPad sir. With your experience (plus the fact that you paid extra for it), I could say it’s a relief not to subscribe anymore to the service. I actually had an account with WatchPad to be able to watch other TV stations which I could not watch on free TV (meaning I do not have a CATV connection).

    After noticing dismal speeds with WatchPad, I decided not to use it anymore (as it was still free that time).

    When I registered for the streaming service with WatchPad for the Pacquiao-Clottey fight, I could not register anymore. I believe PLDT still has difficulty handling large bandwidths.

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