Smart starts boosting NCR's LTE-A speed with 5CC Carrier Aggregation

Smart Communications has started activating five-component carrier (5CC) aggregation in Marikina City to boost LTE-A speeds!

Samsung Galaxy S9's 5CC LTE-A speed on Smart's network

Related: VLOG #1: GIZGUIDE goes to Marikina to confirm Smart's LTE speed upgrade

The five-component carrier (5CC) aggregation boasts over 500 Mbps speeds on LTE-A capable devices.

Smart did a series of daytime tests last week in the densely populated residential area of Marikina City using 5CC-capable device, the new Samsung Galaxy S9 flagship smartphone with LTE Cat 18 speed.

The Galaxy S9 recorded over 500 Mbps with a max speed of 588 Mbps. The lowest score it recorded during the series of tests is at 418 Mbps. 418 Mbps is still considered as crazy fast.

Our LTE-A deployment proves that we have a network that’s capable of providing unprecedented data speeds and world-class internet quality, and has enough capacity to efficiently meet the rapidly rising mobile data traffic, according to Mario G. Tamayo, senior vice president for network planning and engineering at PLDT and Smart.

In case you missed it, carrier aggregation is a major feature of LTE-A. It combiines two or bore bands to create a bigger pipe for faster data rates. Smart has already deployed several 2CC, 3CC, and 4CC in major cities in the Philippines.

This is the first time that Smart has deployed 5CC in the Philippines. According to Smart, they used a 4x4 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) in its network, which raises the efficiency of available radio frequencies by using multiple antennas for sending and receiving data, and 256 QAM, which enables the transfer of more data from a cellsite tower to a device with a very good radio condition.

Smart's LTE-A deployment is a part of the companies major effort in improving LTE speed and reliability in the country. Smart is expected to spend up to PHP 58 billion this year.