Smart to offer mobile LTE up to 6Mbps

The details are still sketchy but an insider has tipped us last night that Smart Communications will be launching mobile LTE (3GPP Long Term Evolution) this week with promised speeds of up to 6Mbps per subscriber. N

Back in November 2010, Globe demonstrated their mobile LTE with maximum speeds of up to 60Mbps (see story here). Now, it’s Smart’s turn to offer LTE to the public (they also did field tests back in November, about two weeks after Globe did theirs).

3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), is the latest standard in the mobile network technology tree that produced the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA network technologies. It is a project of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

The LTE specification provides downlink peak rates of at least 100 Mbps, an uplink of at least 50 Mbps and RAN round-trip times of less than 10 ms. (source: wikipedia)

Unlike the current 3G networks that all of the telcos provide, LTE has a much higher bandwidth capacity so this could help solve the congestion problem (read: slow 3G connections) a lot of the customers are experiencing right now. It’s not clear how their new LTE offering will position against the current 3G network.

LTE USB dongles will be provided (just like the Smart Plug-It dongles they currently offer) for customers to hook up to the service and corresponding monthly service fees have not yet been revealed.

While LTE can easily do between 50Mbps to 100Mbps, they’ll only offer retail subscriptions between 4Mbps to 6Mbps to customers. I’d expect competitive pricing of these subscription to range from Php1,200USD 20INR 1,734EUR 19CNY 149 to Php2,000USD 34INR 2,889EUR 32CNY 248 (but that’s just a hunch).

More on this as we get the details on pricing plans, subscription speeds and supported devices. This is great news as we hope to get better service from Smart. My SmartBro Share-It has been conking up for the last few months.

Update 1: They’re calling it Smart Evolution.

Update 2: Public demo will be done in Boracay from April 21 – 24.

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.

https://www.yugatech.com

27 Comments

lolipown says:

14 years ago

Good thing they didn’t call it 4G
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Jon says:

14 years ago

Heh. I wonder how much they would charge for this. However, if their LTE would be widely available soon, this could ease off the load of congestion on their 3G network. I wonder if they would offer an “upgrade” to existing subscribers.
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Lezuric says:

14 years ago

I highly doubt they will offer something like UPGRADE for existing subscriber unless it is a postpaid.
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nexusboy says:

14 years ago

hi guys, can you help me what tech specification i should look in a LTE-capable handset that would be compatible with upcoming Globe/Smart 3GPP LTE? like, the network band etc.?
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poche says:

14 years ago

is this nationwide or initially avail at selected areas again? but given that they will conduct a public test at boracay i hope that it will be nationwide at launch.
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arj says:

14 years ago

that’s wifi and wimax offers now. kaso ang isang factor na magpapahina ng 4g is weather.
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kano says:

14 years ago

So it’s not 4G then, only 3.9G. Nevertheless it will be a great improvement in our country in terms of speed and mobility.
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Faust says:

14 years ago

@Yuga will there be data caps involved in the smart lte?
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Kerwin says:

14 years ago

Better speed is all well and good however really what I don’t trust with these wireless internet providers is their reliability.
It doesn’t matter if they can reach good speeds if sometimes the browsing experience is worse than that of a dial-up line.
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Jonaflormicfren says:

14 years ago

Let’s see the difference between well said and well done. http://youshudno.blogspot.com/
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cantosph says:

14 years ago

I always doubt the ‘up to’ part.
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Winziph says:

14 years ago

@faust right, will they going to have data caps?
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arj says:

14 years ago

if this is a solution to 3g congestion, perhaps many will flock to lte and gets congested again. then it will become slow and here comes the capping portion again?
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Bob says:

14 years ago

Maganda ito para sa mga nag nenet using phone sana iapply din nila ito sa fixed plans nila like ung sa mga canopy antena. Mabagal lagi ang connection eh.
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Jim Ayson says:

14 years ago

Abe’s “source” for the telco who will introduce a service of “up to 4-6 Mbps” was TJ Manotoc, who was tweeting about Globe. There is no 6 Mbps upper limit, so the headline needs to be corrected as well.

And the LTE trials for SMART date back to Nov 2009 and back, way before that Nov 2010 date mentioned in the article.
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/231754/smart-conducts-first-lte-trial-rp-reinforces-broadband-leadership

The link to the Globe LTE trial includes a Powerpoint demonstration that shows even Globe admitted that HSPA+ was inferior to the next generation technology LTE.

You need to post an Update 3, Abe.
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lolipown says:

14 years ago

You’re late. SoKor is now doing pilot programs so nope, they’ve effective started rolling out.
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lolipown says:

14 years ago

^effectively…
argh
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Rex Santos says:

14 years ago

I hope this will solve the traffic congestion.

I hope you could post the demo results after the that.
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Pinoy CHefs says:

14 years ago

maybe it peaks up to 100mbps if there’s only 1 person in the whole country uses the service. and you can oly use their service is there’s only 100 people using the service. =(
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technobaboy says:

14 years ago

according to smart’s press release, the current speed is 50mbps, and they plan to make it 100mbps in the future. too good to be true

http://bit.ly/fTf5NQ
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kev says:

14 years ago

100mbs @ 10,000-15,000 per month :)
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User says:

14 years ago

May nakatry na po ba nito sa boracay at kung naabot po ba ang 6mbps download speed?
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gadgetboi says:

14 years ago

hi yuga, do you have any idea why providers here claim that they provide such service, and when you get their service you’ll get a speed way way behind their claimed speed? example 3G, in the states 3G is really a fast connection and why the h$ck it’s just the speed of dial up in the Philippines?
So now they are going for LTE which is close to 4G speed right? Shall we believe them?
You have an influential blog, i hope you can blog about why do companies here provide substandard service, so it will be given attention.
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Bora says:

14 years ago

15mbps daw kapag sa loob ng building pero kung sa labas umaabot sa 65mbps

http://abuggedlife.com/2011/04/22/a-look-into-smarts-prototype-lte-dongle-by-huawei-and-my-first-speed-test/
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Vince says:

14 years ago

Smart and PLDT have a reputation of being totally capless. I hope they will continue that with this new service

However expect plans to be throttled to maybe 1-4 mbps. And expect congestion once the number of subscribers increases.

Cap is not the same as congestion and/or throttling
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