Smart Communications is in full swing of their network improvement in the Philippines, their goal of achieving 95% LTE coverage by 2018 is on-track. After demonstrating a successful upgrade of Davao City, Smart is now aggressively upgrading parts of Metro Manila, Cebu, Rizal and much more.
More than 2,500 cell sites in Metro Manila are now getting fitted with the 700MHz antenna to accommodate much faster speeds and reach more indoor households. Smart also indicated that their recent participation in the DICT summit will lead to faster roll out once the Executive Order of prioritizing telecoms as a basic need is implemented.
We recently toured Rizal from Marcos Highway, Sumulong Highway all the way to Antipolo Church. A constant speed of 15mbps download and 10mbps upload was seen all throughout the area, a great improvement considering the upgrade in the area is still not finished.
Additionally, Smart aims to finish the upgrades in Metro Manila by Q2 2016 and start implementing the same improvement in other areas. Hopefully, by the end of the year, we will see a major improvement in calls, text, and data all throughout the nation.
But Smart reminded the consumers that in order to have a good internet experience, you also need a good device. Smart recommended that you need a device that at least having LTE capability to enjoy the fast speeds they are doing right now, advanced devices with 700MHz band and LTE-A carrier aggregation are welcome to enjoy much faster speeds to up to 70mbps.
Using our OPPO F3 Plus, we are glad to reach speeds of 30mbps download and 11mbps upload constantly inside our house! Yes, this speed is already indoors and we’ve seen significant improvements in nearby areas like Cainta as well.
Hopefully, Fiber internet will also roll out faster as we just recently got in our area as well. Smart openly discussed their problems with homeowners associations and their rejection of permits due to health radiation risks which is already addressed by the DOH as safe.
