Smart Communications (Smart) today has officially rolled out the first LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) service in the Philippines, boosting the country’s internet services and enabling more Filipinos to enjoy a better mobile experience.
The technology, also known as 4.5G, delivers improved data speeds over the existing LTE services thru “Carrier aggregation” or simply by combining two or more radio frequency bands in order to deliver bigger bandwidth and faster data speeds. Initially, Smart has combined three frequencies for Smart’s LTE-A service in Boracay and was able to produce speeds of up to 250 Mbps. For users using LTE-A capable devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, this translates to superior mobile experience particularly on data-heavy activities such as streaming high definition videos and music, as well as online gaming.
Smart has been testing the LTE-A as early as 2013 during the Geeks on a Beach in Boracay, Kadayawan festival in Davao and in Makati City and the roll-out puts smart in the short list of operators globally that have embraced the 4.5G technology. This includes Optus in Australia, Sprint in the US, and Turkcell in Turkey, among others. The rollout also enables Smart’s network facilities to be 5G-ready when it launches sometime in 2020.
Smart is expected to bring the Smart LTE-A in key cities and major areas in the country by end of this year or early next year.