It’s official! The Philippines now has an LTE network available to subscribers courtesy of Smart Communications.
Smart Communications launched their LTE service to the public in Newport Mall, Resorts World yesterday, August 25. The launch party was well-attended by Smart executives, media, celebrities, cosplayers and also by mall-goers who got to enjoy the festivities.
Smart’s LTE can give you up to 42Mbps broadband speeds with a 10GB monthly cap for Php3,500 and comes with a free LTE dongle. Go over the 10GB cap and it’s Php450 per 1GB. However, Smart is offering early LTE adopters to unlimited data until October 25! No cap with that speed? Imagine the damage you can do to your disk space.
According the PLDT-Smart Network and IP Systems Head Rolando G. Pena, high traffic areas across Metro Manila will get LTE signals. This includes the Makati Business District which alone has about 20 LTE sites. For comparison, only 24 LTE sites across the metro were present during beta testing.
To demonstrate Smart’s LTE speeds, a simultaneous launch was done in Cebu. There was a live online battle between the country’s best Starcraft II player, Pablo “˜Mski.Pobbes’ Poblador who was in Cebu, against Korea’s champ, Kim “˜Classic’ Hong Jae, who was at Resorts World. Unfortunately, we didn’t stay around to see who won but one thing’s for sure, Smart LTE is now live and ready!