Smart to further improve LTE service coverage and quality in Metro Manila

Smart to further improve LTE service coverage and quality in Metro Manila (Photo: Smart Communications, Inc./Facebook)

MANILA—PLDT mobile unit Smart Communications is pursuing a major network expansion for the next three months to further improve the coverage and quality of its voice, SMS and mobile Internet particularly its LTE (Long Term Evolution) service in Metro Manila.

The rollout is expected to strengthen the reach of Smart’s LTE and 3G mobile data services in all 17 cities and municipalities of the National Capital Region.

The mobile communications firm will deploy new base station equipment in about 2,500 cell sites across the metropolis that use low frequency bands such as 700 MHz, 850 MHz and 900 MHz for its LTE and 3G services since these cover a large area and provide better indoor signals.

High-frequency bands like 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz will also be rolled out to increase the capacity of each Smart cell site to handle more calls, texts, and mobile data traffic.

“Smart is rolling out the fastest and most powerful mobile data network in the country, and we are focused on improving indoor coverage since we know that people use mobile internet services mostly indoors, particularly in Metro Manila – in their homes, offices, restaurants, coffee shops, and the like,” Joachim Horn, chief information technology and information advisor for PLDT and Smart, said.

Horn said Smart sees that the indoor LTE coverage will increase by four times while indoor LTE coverage will double in the densely populated areas of Metro Manila.

The initiative is part of a three year network rollout plan being undertaken by Smart to make LTE coverage available to subscribers in 1,551 cities and municipalities across the country by end-2018, which was submitted by PLDT to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) in July last year.

It includes the use of the 700 MHz frequency that Smart obtained access through a co-use agreement after the acquisition of the telecoms business of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) by PLDT and Globe Telecom in May last year.

Smart is working closely with leading handset manufacturers to bring more affordable LTE handsets to the Philippine market.

“We are accelerating our LTE deployment because LTE, an all-IP (internet protocol) network, delivers a superior experience to customers, particularly for data,” according to Horn.

“LTE provides us the right platform to bring high-speed mobile internet throughout the country. LTE facilities, with strengthened transport links, can be quickly upgraded to LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), which can provide greater capacity and faster data speeds,” she added.

Horn said the focus on LTE as its nationwide network improvement program is part of efforts to improve the overall quality of service available to all Smart, TNT, and Sun subscribers all over the country.

Late last year, the company completed the integration of the Smart and Sun mobile networks, enabling Smart to install more new base stations for 2G, 3G, and LTE technologies to better serve the subscribers of both brands.

Smart also rolled out since April last year the country’s first LTE-A service using a capability called Carrier Aggregation amid the increasing demand for bandwidth-heavy services like video streaming and gaming.

Initially deployed in Boracay and soon in major urban areas such as Metro Davao, Metro Cebu, and Metro Manila, Smart’s LTE-A service delivers peak speeds of more than 100 Mbps to users with LTE-A capable devices.

Through Carrier Aggregation, or the capability of LTE-A to combine two or more radio frequency bands in order to deliver bigger bandwidth and faster data speeds to mobile users, Smart, together with Huawei, hit another record last year when it successfully combined five frequencies to achieve data speeds of over one Gbps (gigabit per second).

The breakthrough put Smart in the league of just a handful of leading operators actively working on ultra-high speed wireless data capacity in anticipation of demand for gigabit speeds.