Ericsson Completes LTE Deployment For Smart

Here's good news to Smart subscribers courtesy of Ericsson Philippines!

Press Release:

• New LTE sites in North and South Luzon expected to ensure excellent customer experience

• Faster download times, better smartphone performance expected

Ericsson announced last June 21 that it has completed its installation of around 250 LTE sites in North and South Luzon for wireless leader Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart).  The LTE sites are expected to help SMART ensure customers of an even better mobile experience, especially with regard to download times and smartphone performance.

The completion expands Smart’s LTE coverage, which is the first and widest LTE network in the Philippines. To date, Smart LTE is enjoyed by subscribers in 46 cities and 69 municipalities all over the country.

Elie Hanna, Ericsson Philippines and Pacific Islands President and Country Manager, says: “We can confirm that some of the sites we tested registered downlink speeds of up to 50MBps, in real time and in the live network. We are pleased to contribute to SMART’s ongoing efforts to provide their customers with the best mobile experience possible.”

This was one of the fastest deployments to date for Ericsson in the Southeast Asia region.  Hanna explained that Ericsson “wanted to exceed SMART’s expectations and contribute towards their aim of providing LTE service to their customers.”

LTE, or Long Term Evolution, is the global standard for the fourth generation of mobile networks (4G) supported by all major players in the industry. LTE offers the capacity and the speed to handle a rapid increase in data traffic. According to latest market data traffic report, there will be 5 billion mobile broadband subscriptions in 2017. 60% of the world’s population will have LTE coverage by 2018.

Ericsson has delivered more than 160 LTE/EPC networks worldwide of which more than 90 have gone live commercially. These include networks for all of the top ten operators ranked by number of LTE subscribers worldwide in 2012. In addition, Ericsson placed into the Leaders Quadrant in Magic Quadrant for LTE Network Infrastructure in 2012 by Gartner, Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company.