Smart Launches 42MBPS LTE For PHP 3,500–Free Unlimited Bandwidth Until October 25

September 24 23:33 2012 by Alexei Rivera Print This Article

If you’re living in the Philippines and receive even the slightest bit of tech news, then no doubt you’ve probably heard of a newfangled thing called the LTE (Long Term Evolution) internet service. Its one of the fastest ways to get onto the information superhighway (do people still call it that?) and it is wireless to boot. In fact, its an evolved form of wireless phone signal and is technically called 4G. The Philippines has recently been inundated with a lot of publicity stemming from the two major telco’s efforts to launch this new service in the Philippines – one of which is Smart Communications. In an event held last month, they’ve officially released their LTE service to the public – offering a PHP 3,500 monthly plan that gives you up to 42MBPS. (Typical DSL is around 3-5MBPS.) The catch though is that the plan is capped at 10GB, with succeeding prices for each extra GB spent (or other bucket plans). However, if you pick up the plan now until October 25, 2012, you’ll be able to enjoy the services in unlimited form until that said date.

The aforementioned LTE service is a relatively new technology that is growing in popularity – especially in the United States where it delivers a much appreciated speed boost over traditional 3G connections. While most providers in the Philippines have yet to maximize their throughputs on their HSPA/HSDPA connections, our initial impressions of Smart’s LTE speeds have been positive – with an average of about 30-40MBPS when we had a chance to try it out. Of course, that might change in real-world scenarios depending certain variables like the amount of people currently using it, or if you are in an area that has decent coverage of the telco’s 4G signals.

With an effective 10GB cap on the PHP 3,500 monthly subscription, it’s at least promising to know that most people will try not to go above it – thereby guaranteeing that all users will enjoy uncongested speeds. Of course if you apply for the service now (or you’ve already applied), then you are lucky enough to enjoy their promo which grants you unlimited service until the 25th of October, 2012. And if you are one of those lucky subscribers, can you send some bandwidth our way?

The Smart LTE Service is now available in a postpaid subscription in the aforementioned PHP 3,500 / 10GB / month plan (comes with a USB LTE dongle for your PC). You can apply for one at your nearest Smart center or at their website here. Check it out and maybe you’ll get that internet speed boost you’ve been waiting for!

For more pictures of the event, check out our gallery below.