Smart's continuous investment enhances network capacity

The continuous investment of PLDT's wireless arm in network infrastructure has allowed it to support the increasing demand for mobile data, particularly now that most areas are under lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Photo: A fish seller in Cebu City advertises her fish stocks on social media

Smart's network investment is paying off 

During the first quarter, its mobile data traffic surged to 636 petabytes (PB), double the traffic it booked from a year earlier, and 26 percent higher from end-2019. 

Propelled by mobile data, the unit's service revenues jumped by 20 percent to PHP 20.2 billion.

Now that the country is battling the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many areas in the country are under quarantine, where the government-mandated Filipinos to remain at home.

Given this, the movement of people has been limited and many opt to go online to spend their time or do grocery shopping, also enabling local vendors to tap the digital space to sell their products.

Our LTE-powered mobile data network has passed the initial COVID stress test. The money and effort we’ve invested in our network have enabled us to provide quality service to our mobile phone customers even as data usage continued to rise, particularly since people have been forced to stay at home by the pandemic, said Alfred S. Panlilio, Smart President and CEO, and, PLDT Chief Revenue Officer.

Ending the first quarter, Smart boosted the number of its 4G/LTE base stations to 26,000, 6 percent higher from end-2019. 

PLDT’s fiber infrastructure, which supports Smart’s network by providing high-capacity links to LTE base stations, is now at 338,500 kilometers nationwide, 5 percent more than end-2019, and up nearly 40 percent from end-2018.