‘Evolved’ GIGA offers drive Smart mobile data usage 

PLDT wireless subsidiary Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) has continued to drive data usage by expanding its prepaid data offers to cater to avid video, gaming and social media users. Launched early this year, the evolved data offers—GIGA Video, GIGA Games and GIGA IG+FB—have contributed to the continued increase in mobile data usage on the network, bulk of which come from increased video watching.

As of the first quarter, monthly YouTube users further increased by 35% compared to the previous quarter, while viewership of other video apps like NBA, iWant and iflix have also more than doubled.

In addition, the volume of monthly Mobile Legends data traffic also increased by 141% in the first quarter.

These data-packed offers come as the global number of mobile subscriptions grew to around 7.9 billion, with the Philippines ranking among the countries with the most net additions during the 1st quarter of 2019 at 4 million, next only to China (+30 million) and Nigeria (+5 million), according to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report.

“Whether our customers are more interested in streaming videos on YouTube, playing Mobile Legends with their friends, or keeping in touch with their families through their Facebook or Instagram accounts, our expanded GIGA family offers can provide them with more than enough data to meet their ever-growing demand for mobile internet services,” said Oscar Enrico A. Reyes Jr., PLDT-Smart Senior Vice President and Head of Consumer Market Development.

Expanded offers

These offers include the GIGA Video 99, which offers 2GB open access data and up to 1GB or one hour of video access to YouTube, iflix, iWant, NBA League Pass, and Cignal TV per day for seven days; and the new GIGA Games offers, which start at P50 for three days, and which include open access data and an additional up to 1GB access to Mobile Legends, Arena of Valor (AOV), Clash of Clans and Clash Royale per day.

Heavy social media users also have the option to choose the new GIGA IG+FB offers, which has open access data and an additional 1GB access to Instagram per day.

Customers can also subscribe to GIGA Video+ offers to get unlimited calls and texts to Smart, Sun and TNT, together with their open access data and up to 1GB or one hour of Video Every Day for the duration of the promo.

Smart GIGA Video+ is available for P75 (1GB open access data for for 3 days), and P149 (2GB open access data for 7 days), while 30-day variants are also available with bigger data allocations.

To register to these new GIGA offers, simply dial *123#.

Philippines’ fastest network

These services are supported by the country’s fastest fixed and mobile networks as awarded by Ookla, the global leader in internet testing and analysis.

According to the Ookla report, which covered Q1-Q2 2019, Smart achieved a Speed Score of 17.07, with average download speeds of 19.33 Mbps and average upload speeds of 9.16 Mbps. The mobile award is based on 1,857,286 consumer-initiated tests taken with Speedtest® on LTE-capable devices in the Philippines.

To support Filipinos’ increasing appetite for data, PLDT and Smart are continuously expanding and modernizing their fixed and mobile networks, backed by a historic-high capital expenditure of P78.4 billion this year. The capex investments are to further expand coverage and to increase capacity to handle the exponential growth in data traffic. The ultimate aim is to deliver the best data customer experience.

Smart has raised the total number of LTE base stations to about 18,000 as of the first quarter. Smart is also activating carrier aggregation across its sites, enabling the network to deliver even faster mobile internet services by combining the capacity of two or more frequency bands.

Meanwhile, PLDT has further expanded its total fiber optic cable network footprint to 259,000 kilometers. This fiber network also supports Smart’s mobile network by providing high-capacity links to cellular base stations.