Students get 10,000 free Smart Bro dongles at “B Free” mega event

Students of member schools of the University Athletics Association of the Philippines (UAAP) and the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) gathered in a festive inter-university blowout mounted this weekend by leading wireless Internet provider Smart Bro.

Worthy of a Guinness record title, the huge crowd turn-out in “B Free Day” reached peak excitement as 10,000 units of Smart Bro prepaid wireless modems or ‘dongles’ were given away for free to the students, a first in the marketing initiatives by a wireless broadband company in the country.

This is in line with Smart Bro’s partnership with the two premier collegiate sports leagues, which produced limited editions of Smart Bro Plug Its, dongles designed with the sports team monickers of UAAP and NCAA member schools. These are Adamson University, Ateneo, La Salle, FEU, National University, UE, UST and UP for UAAP. The NCAA member schools are College of St. Benilde (CSB), Jose Rizal University, Letran, Mapua, San Beda, San Sebastian, Philippine Christian University (on leave), and University of Perpetual Help.

“Supporting school sports is one of our advocacies as these provide positive entertainment and promote healthy competition among the youth. Giving away the dongles is our reward to them, in line with Smart Bro’s goal of delivering Internet for all,” explained Smart marketing group head Annie P. Naval.

UAAP Season 72 president Anton Montinola said the league was “happy to be associated with Smart, a quality organization with quality products that cater to the youth, just like the UAAP. We are very thankful for this collaboration.”

On the other hand, NCAA 85th Season chair Jose Mari Lacson said, “We only partner with number one, and this should add spice to what the NCAA is all about, which is that of keeping up with the times.”

The NCAA board’s marketing committee head Henry Atayde also said “it’s about time we introduced something new, young and fresh since we’re the oldest league in the country.” Earnings from the partnership will be used for the scholarship program of CSB, the school he represents.

This first-of-its kind event was a fitting get-together for students as the collegiate sports season moved towards heated final playoffs that will decide the fate of their school teams.

Held at the Megatent in Ortigas Avenue, Pasig City, “B Free Day” thrilled the student crowd with back-to-back performances by popular rock bands Sandwich, Hale and Spongecola; raffle draws; and games and treats reminiscent of school fairs such as bail out jail booth, balloon darts, ball toss, back massages, burgers, beverages and other sponsors’ freebies—all beginning with the letter ‘b’.

Another popular section of “B Free” featured a remount of the successful Smart Bro Broadbandemonium – The Great SMART Bro Sale. The sale brought together major PC brands Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Neo and Toshiba, which have bundled Smart Bro in some of their latest models, to give buyers the right equipment to enjoy the Internet with Smart Bro’s fast connectivity.
Smart Communications, Inc. recently launched its expanded HSPA network nationwide, from Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte to Digos, Davao del Sur—with many more cellsites expected to go live before 2009 ends. Metro Manila, Cebu, Davao, and other key cities are already covered with seamless, high-speed mobile broadband which provides a subscriber high speeds of up to 5.8Mbps, enabling Smart Bro subscribers to enjoy the fastest wireless broadband service when surfing the internet.

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