Smart to Officially Roll Out 4G LTE, Benefits Foreseen at First LTE Forum

Smart to Officially Roll Out 4G LTE, Benefits Foreseen at First LTE Forum

Smart Communications, in cooperation with Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Huawei, NTT Docomo, recently staged the First LTE Forum at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City. There, the telco giant mentioned the commercial launch of 3GPP Long Term Evolution or 4G LTE service which is expected to happen on August 25 this year. 4G LTE through Smart was initially experienced by some consumers through a series of pilot tests and road shows held in various parts of the country like Boracay, Baguio, Cebu, and Davao.

At the First LTE Forum, Smart Communications and partners discussed the advantages which 4G LTE could bring in the Philippines. Organizations like the World Bank and GSMA Research agree that broadband connectivity speed has become an important determinant of GDP (gross domestic product) among countries. Hence, the massive Internet speed brought about by 4G LTE is expected to play an important role in shaping the country’s economic future.

A game-changing standard, 4G LTE promises to deliver massive Internet speeds of up to 80Mbps with less latency. 4G LTE is an ideal Internet connectivity solution in archipelagic countries like the Philippines because of its wide coverage. Industries and sectors that will gain benefit through 4G LTE include automotives, defense, digital signage, education, energy, healthcare, mining, public safety, surveillance, transportation, and utilities. 4G LTE also introduces a new mobile office experience in the field of business.

Instead of making various infrastructures compete with one another, 4G LTE aims to unify all of these. With its advent, 4G LTE does not intend to completely remove existing standards, but rather use them for cost-effective deployments. Hence, well-established standards, such as GSM, are expected to stay until the next decade. Globally, 338 operators have faith in 4G LTE. In the Southeast Asian region, the Philippines is among the first countries that will adopt 4G LTE. NTT Docomo and Softbank of Japan are helping in expanding the 4G LTE ecosystem in the region. NTT Docomo’s Xi (pronounced as Crossy) is one of the largest 4G LTE deployments in Asia, comprised of 9,800 base stations that support a massive subscriber base of 4.3 million. Xi was launched in December 24, 2010.

4G LTE is also an ideal standard that supports usage of applications and access of content through the cloud. With its massive speeds, 4G LTE is expected to dramatically increase Internet usage worldwide. Today, Internet usage is primarily dominated by downloading and uploading of content like games, photos, and videos through mobile devices. 4G LTE can further help companies and app developers monetize content that they create. Mobile communications providers such as PCCW (Hong Kong), Korea Telecom (South Korea), and Verizon (United States) have been working with content providers to allow consumers access a variety of content through the cloud.