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Is there hope for #betterinternet with Smart LTE?

Smart Comm. sent out a release to the media earlier last week announcing that they will be 100% LTE-ready by mid-2012. That’s certainly good news considering that we’re just actually talking about HSPA+ coverage in the past months.

As one of the early beta-testers for Smart’s LTE roll-out, I can definitely say that there’s a great deal of difference between LTE speeds and what we’re commercially experiencing now (I am subscribed to a SmartBro Power Plug-It 999).


I am told this Huawei LTE dongle costs around Php15,000 in the market.

However, the news of 100% LTE-readiness doesn’t offer much hope. It like saying that a telco is 100% 3G-ready yet half the time you don’t get to see a 3G signal in your area?

If the network is 100% LTE-ready, it means that all the base stations are equipped to broadcast at LTE frequency. That means at anytime, they can just turn it on and you have access to super fast mobile internet speeds.

Question is, will they turn all of it ON? Not likely.

That’s because it requires additional cost to run them. If the demand in an area does not justify turning on LTE, then it won’t be activated in that base station. This is what they did with 3G, WiMax, etc so they’ll do the same with LTE.

Turning it on requires that the backbone can provide the bandwidth. It could be fiber, it could be a dedicated line or just some additional bandwidth. For remote islands, it could be satellite.

As such, the cost of providing this cutting-edge technology to Philippine consumers will certainly be higher. The pricing is said to be volume-based and that means you buy access by the bucket (a bucket of 1GB at a time perhaps). I am pretty curious though how much that bucket of bandwidth will cost. If it will be anywhere within the vicinity of how they priced SmartBro Rocket (which is Php200 per 180MB), I don’t think anyone’s gonna bite. I never used SmartBro Rocket since my first trial (bought the prepaid stick for Php3,995).

LTE sure does offer pretty amazing speeds. I’m just worried no ones going to try it out for the long haul because it will be as expensive as SmartBro Rocket.

I’ve sent out some questions to the folks at Smart and hopefully get all the answers I needed to share with everyone.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

35 Responses

  1. Avatar for ren ren says:

    LTE is a lie epecially to Smart Telecommunication…How come it become 100% LTE??? they did not even upgrade their other tower to 3G…there are a lot of places where Smart 3G is still not yet available…You are a BIG lier….

  2. Avatar for servicio tecnico servicio tecnico says:

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  3. Avatar for Wah Wah says:

    Smart LTE is the biggest joke in PH telco industry. WTH, they can’t even provide a decent reliable Internet service to their Smart Bro-ken clients, considering that most of these clients only have 512 kbps. Mabuti na lang at naka-post ako, on and off ang Smart Bro-ken dito sa Cavite. AMP!

  4. Avatar for Wah Wah says:

    Smart LTE is biggest joke in PH telco industry. WTH, they can’t even provide a decent reliable Internet service to their Smart Bro-ken clients, considering that most of these clients only have 512 kbps. Mabuti na lang at naka-post ako, on and off ang Smart Bro-ken dito sa Cavite. AMP!

  5. Avatar for braces braces says:

    WOW just what I was searching for. Came here by searching
    for Braces

  6. Avatar for Troylo Troylo says:

    I live right under one of the base towers and get a stunning 20kbps d/l with a strong connection. the rocket was the worst investment i’ve ever made. it started out blazing fast and I even convinced a friend to buy one. then slowly over months they both get something like 20kbps maximum download speed now. save your money, start reading books and get a pen-pal. smart is not ready to provide much internet. ahhh I just disconnect again. but okej, used to it.

  7. Avatar for maurag maurag says:

    eto speedtest result ng smartbro plug-it plan 999 http://www.speedtest.net/result/1871900726.png in fairness na upgrade na talaga ang speed ng smart pwede na kahit 3G compared 5 years ago GPRS lang tapos naging 387kbps. Its worth paying. Di ako masyadong nagrereklamo. Lets see if smart LTE could be better internet. Much better siguro kung bababaan nila ang monthly service fee :)

  8. Avatar for makito makito says:

    Am using smartbro plug it postpaid so far ok naman sya pag nasa bundok ako 1.76mbps ang average speed pero sa bayan HSDPA pero 10-150 kbps lang!

  9. Avatar for BRO KEN BRO KEN says:

    NO THERE WILL NEVER BE A BETTER ISP IN THE PHILIPPINES NEVER. PAPASUNOG AKO NG BUHAY KAPAG NANGYARI YAN. HAHAHA!!!

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