PLDT wireless subsidiary Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) offers the country’s best download speeds, according to the latest report from Germany-based P3 communications GmbH, a leader in mobile network benchmarking.
The crowdsource-based study, which included 121 million samples from 104,000 users collected from October to December 2018, said Smart achieved the highest user download speed score among competitors with 98 points, compared to nearest competitor’s 68 points.
“This latest award is further proof that our continuous network upgrades across the country are paying off, and that our customers are feeling the benefits whenever they use mobile data to connect with their families, to access online services like banking and e-commerce, or to stream videos on their phones,” said Mario G. Tamayo, PLDT-Smart senior vice president for Network Planning and Engineering.
“This year, we are further investing in our networks to build on that competitive edge,” Tamayo added.
Award-winning network
The P3 award is the latest in a string of citations received by PLDT and Smart on network superiority. Earlier, third-party firms Ookla, Opensignal and Tutela also released their respective crowdsource-based studies on internet services in the country, and found Smart’s wireless network to be superior in terms of speeds and latency than that of competition.
Ookla’s Q1-Q2 and Q3-Q4 2018 reports found that PLDT and Smart are the country’s fastest fixed and mobile networks, while Smart has consistently led in terms of 4G speeds in studies by Opensignal since 2017.
More recently, Smart won four out of five categories in Opensignal’s Mobile Experience Awards – Video Experience, Download Speed, Upload Speed and Latency.
On the other hand, Canadian crowd-sourced mobile data company Tutela said Smart users were twice as likely to experience ‘excellent’ data connections, which are needed for heavy data uses like video viewing.
Network expansion
Underpinning this network performance is PLDT’s expansive fiber network, which now spans over 244,000 kilometers and also supports Smart’s mobile network by providing high-capacity links to cellular base stations. As of end-2018, Smart has increased the number of LTE base stations on its network by over 86% year-on-year to about 16,200, while the number of 3G base stations also increased by 17% to about 11,500. This massive deployment has enabled Smart to provide mobile broadband in at least 90% of the country’s cities and municipalities.
To push further the already significant network advantage of PLDT and Smart, and to support an active campaign for more revenues, PLDT and Smart are undertaking yet another massive capital expenditures program for 2019 by allocating up to P78.4 billion budget this year, P20 billion higher than the previous year. This includes a substantial allocation for “Customer Capex”, which is intended for the purchase of last-mile and customer-premises equipment like modems and also the acquisition of vehicles, equipment and office space for the new corps of technicians being assembled to fast-track the installation and repair of fixed broadband connections.
Benchmark leader
P3 is an international consulting, engineering and testing services company with a rapidly growing team of more than 3,500 consultants and engineers working to develop and implement innovative solutions to today’s complex technology challenges. Offering a broad portfolio of services and proprietary tools to the automotive, aerospace, telecommunications and energy industries, P3 adds tangible value that helps clients succeed at every stage, from innovation to implementation.
In the telecommunications sector, P3 communications is a leader in mobile network benchmarking and provides performance indicators for communication networks worldwide, and measures network quality on consumer smartphones during normal, everyday use. P3 provides independent technical and management consulting services including network planning and optimization, international benchmarking, engineering, security services, device testing and acceptance services to network operators, equipment vendors, device manufacturers, public safety organizations and regulatory authorities all over the world.
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