It is now available in 52 Smart Stores nationwide with competitive LTE packages you definitely can take advantage on.  If you have a cool gadget, you might as well maximize its capacity to WOW you!  With that said, download games, stream Youtube videos, upload albums with ultra fast internet without lag, buffering or delay!

Experience LTE today on an iPad Mini or an iPad 4th Gen. 

It’s worth the investment especially if you don’t want to waste your time waiting for webpages to load, or your instagram photo to be uploaded!  Live more by letting the LTE do its job.  Once you experience LTE, you will be spoiled!  and you deserve it because you deserve to spend your time on the things you love – not on waiting 😛

I had my hands on an iPad 4 to test!  Check out my speed test video below on 2 different locations.

Testing area: TOSH (The Old Spaghetti House), Valero, Makati

Download speed at a whopping 19.65 mbps!

Upload speed could have done better at 0.94 mbps… but for me, it’s still fast enough to upload albums / videos

Testing area: Picasso Boutique Hotel, Makati

Download speed in this area is only 3.37 mbps – but still!!! streaming youtube videos would be no problem for this speed

Upload speed got better at around 2 mbps

Check out more video tests by Chef Tonio here.

iPad LTE Plans with Smart

Plan 999

Unlimited Smart LTE/3G Internet for 24 months

iPad Mini and 4G at P8,000 discount (an iPad wifi+cellular at the price of a wifi only unit) 

Installment schemes available with major credit cards

Plan 499

65 hours of Smart LTE/3G Internet, protected by anti-billshock feature

iPad Mini and 4G at P1,000 discount and zero-interest for 24 mos, even without a credit card

Choose lowest monthly plan option and get it at 0% interest for 24 months.

Pay only P1,374 a month, all-in. No credit card or cash-out necessary. Available on Plan 499

iPad Freebies

FREE reversible neoprene sleeve

Best priced insurance against theft or accidental loss and damage for as low as P1,371/year.

Discount vouchers up to 20% on accessories

Complimentary tickets for two to Digital Lifestyle Sessions at Jump

If you want to get your hands on the new iPad 4 or mini with Smart LTE, check out this poster.

Also visit this website:

http://www1.smart.com.ph/pages/ipadmini

Another great weekend in Boracay with a super fast broadband!  I didn’t mind staying in my hotel room longer than my usual trips.  I was uploading photos and videos for Tek Tok TV using the Smart LTE Dongle that was loaned to us for testing.

I don’t mind this being my workstation for a day 🙂

Unfortunately, this amazing technology is super new that it is just up for testing in Boracay (and other urban areas) for now…  But LTE Technology has already been widely used in US and Japan.  I am so happy that the Philippines will soon have this technology!  To bloggers, social media freaks and people who rely so much in the internet like me, this is a great news!

Smart Deploys LTE in Boracay

Smart has made its fourth generation (4G) network available in the island of Boracay for initial testing.  Thanks to Smart for bringing us over Boracay over the weekend to be one of the first few people to test this revolutionary technology!  Imagine experiencing blazing fast download speeds up to 70 mbps!  This will allow us to benefit from the wonders of the web even more.  It doesn’t end there, they are actually ready to increase LTE’s throughput up to 100mbps as soon as the market demands for it.

*did the speed test indoors which will give you weaker signal.  but at 25 mbps, it is faster than 99% of PH!

I was testing the Smart LTE dongle indoors and it only gave me 25mbps but I was already WOW-ed by the super fast streaming speed as I was watching HD Videos over the internet.  It didn’t take us quite a while to test the broadband because everything happened so fast, I was running out of videos to watch lol.

We were in Boracay only overnight but we were able to do a lot of things like testing the Smart LTE Broadband, Paraw sunset sailing (was so relaxing!), dine at different restaurants in Boracay, had dessert at Lemon Cafe!  I was also able to swim at our hotel’s pool, upload a video blog of me, sipping some margarita, sipping some Real Coffee in the morning, buying pasalubong 🙂 etc!

*Paraw sailing at sunset!

Bloggers testing the Smart LTE

What exactly is LTE?

Smart has officially introduced Long Term Evolution (LTE) – its latest network technology which promises blazing fast download speeds and incomparable reliability.  LTE is the undisputed future of mobile internet and telephony.  It has been deployed in countries such as Japan (NTT DoCoMo), Norway and Sweden (TeliaSoneria) and is undergoing tests in the United States (Verizon and AT&T).

This technology is now being tested in Boracay! Whee!

LTE is a mobile standard which promises, at present, actual download speeds of up to 70mbps (as proven during its launch in Boracay) or roughly 35 times faster than that of the current 3G standard.  This can also be upgraded to handle speeds of more than 100mbps, making it a true fourth-generation (4G) technology as defined by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

It is really technical, but if you want to distinguish between LTE (4G), 3G, HSPA and WiMax here it is – LTE’s closes competitors HSPA+ and WiMax top out less than 30mbps in actual use according to tests conducted by Smart.  This officially classifies both as 3G technology.

You can use LTE 3 ways:

1.  Wired Modem – this one is as big as my laptop.  It is the least portable of the three mediums you can use LTE.  This should give you the strongest signal up to 70 mbps.

2. Wifi – I wasn’t able to see how it looks but we tested this over dinner at Epic :)  Wifi is attached to the Modem and the speed distributed to the Wifi network.

3. Dongle – this is the most portable of the three!  It will give you up to 30 – 40 mbps!

It of course depends on other factors as well, like your laptop’s capability, how near you are to the tower, the server’s speed and if you are indoors or not. I am not sure if weather is included though 😛

Where to buy Smart LTE?

I have posted updates of my weekend testing trip over Facebook and Twitter and people have been asking me where they can buy this!?!  It is not yet available on all cities but when it does get deployed nationwide, you sure will know first on my blog!

More photos here 🙂

 

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