Smart installed more than 5,600 4G LTE base stations in 1 year!

PLDT’s wireless arm Smart Communications is on course to hit its target of covering 90 percent of cities and municipalities in the Philippines with LTE-powered mobile data services. 

Smart 4G cell site

More cell sites than ever

The unit said recently it ramped up the deployment of LTE sites to provide enhanced services to the group's mobile subscribers. 

Smart, as of end-September, was able to power more than 5,600 base stations with LTE,  raising the total number of its LTE sites to over 14,300.

Video experience data in the Philippines

Given this, Smart was awarded by London-based mobile analytics company OpenSignal for providing best video experience in the country, beating its rival Globe Telecom.

In a separate report, covering the months of May to July, OpenSignal said the PLDT unit also offered faster LTE download speeds with 13.02 megabits per second (Mbps), ahead of its competitor’s 7.34 Mbps.

This back-to-back series of recognitions confirms that just as we intended, our network transformation initiatives have greatly improved the quality of experience of our customers, particularly for mobile video, said Mario G. Tamayo, PLDT-Smart Senior Vice President for Network Planning and Engineering.

For this year alone, PLDT allotted PHP 58 billion to finance its network upgrade. But as demands continue to grow, PLDT Chief Manuel V. Pangilinan said the group may increase its spending for 2019 to aggressively finance 3G/4G/5G rollout next year.

Do you experience faster mobile internet now in your areas?

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