Smart upgraded 71 percent of its LTE sites to LTE-A

Smart's latest study revealed that most of its subscribers are already 4G LTE phone users. It also showed the latest network upgrades of the company.

Our speed test in Marikina in 2018

LTE and LTE-A ready devices are needed to enjoy Smart's upgraded network

It revealed that as of the first half of 2019, about 70 percent of Smart's subscribers are already smartphone owners. It confirmed that "most" of them are already 4G LTE phone users with LTE SIMs.

Having a phone with the said connectivity feature is important to complement the company's ongoing network rollout and upgrades.

Since about 30 percent of Filipinos are still on basic phones with no LTE, Smart said that it is working with device manufacturers to capable handsets within the reach of our customers. 

The company added that it has partnered smartphone manufacturers in getting more LTE and LTE-A capable handsets out in the market.

Allow us to also note that owning an LTE-A ready smartphone with complete bands such as Band 28 700MHz frequency is crucial in enjoying the full potential of Smart's upgraded network.

As of writing, 71 percent of Smart's LTE sites nationwide have been already upgraded to LTE-A.

It simply means that each site has multiple LTE base stations activated and those who own phones with LTE-A with CA (carrier aggregation) and complete bands will simply experience better connectivity and faster mobile internet speeds.

Smart added that in the first half of 2019, Smart deployed an additional 2,900 LTE base stations.

In total, the company now has over 19,000 sites.

The result? A recent report showed that Smart achieved a Speed Score of 17.0 with average download speeds of 19.33 Mbps and upload speeds of 9.16 Mbps.

What do you guys think?