Smart to complete 4G upgrade by June

Friday, January 20, 2012

SMART Communications Inc. announced completion of facility upgrades by the middle of this year.

Smart is in the thick of a P67.1-billion network upgrade aiming to have faster service for its subscribers.

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

“That means we will be able to activate LTE (Long Term Evolution) or HSPA+ (High Speed Access Plus) services at any of our base stations, depending on what the market in that area requires,” said Rolando Peca, PLDT and Smart Technology Group head.

“This is a major component of the P67.1-billion network modernization of PLDT and Smart which we have accelerated and intend to complete within the year,” Peña said.

LTE is touted to be the most advanced fourth generation (4G) wireless technology capable of data speeds of 100 megabits per second (mbps) and above.

HSPA+, meanwhile, is a 4G technology that can deliver speeds of up to 80 mbps.

All these would mean faster connections for Smart’s internet service, Peña said.

Smart said it is also installing Single Radio Access Network base stations, which can be easily upgraded to offer either HSPA+ or LTE services through software upgrades and some additional hardware equipment, in all of its cell sites to make its over 13,000 base stations nationwide 4G-ready.

PLDT and Smart are then rolling more fiber-optic cables to connect base stations to the rest of the network. This will allow the group’s network “to carry data traffic in greater volumes and faster speeds with greater resiliency.”

Smart said as of the end of last year, over 5,000 Smart base stations were already 4G-ready –- close to 3,000 of which are already 4G-equipped (with LTE, HSPA+ and Wi-Max facilities) –- backed by more than 45,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cable arranged in a way that allows data to be redirected to other avenues or channels called “loops”.