Two years after it brought Long-Term Evolution (LTE) or 4G technology to the country, wireless services leader Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) announced that 5G wireless technology LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), is now running in the Philippines’ largest and strongest network.
Smart recently switched on LTE-A at the Smart Jump Center in Mandaluyong City, setting the next phase of mobile communication technology beyond 4G LTE standards.
Co-founder and Chief Wireless Advisor of Smart Orlando B. Vea (first from left) during the tests of 5G LTE-A at Smart, where speeds reaching 209.66 mbps were recorded.
LTE-A—also referred to as ‘5G’—delivers data from between 100 mbps to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), or ten times faster than 3G services and more than twice as fast as 4G services.
By firing up LTE-A technology on its network, Smart joins only a handful of carriers around the world with an LTE-A network, along with leading mobile operators in South Korea, United States, Singapore, Australia, and Hong Kong.
With LTE-A, a 10MB file takes less than a second to download, YouTube videos no longer have to buffer, and video calls are almost lag-free. But beyond speed, LTE-A’s main feature is also its capability to allocate more network resources to users when the need arises.
Smart started testing LTE-A across the country in August last year, delivering results of more than 100Mbps in Makati City, in Boracay, and in Davao City during the Kadayawan festival.
