Testing Smart LTE Broadband in Boracay

If you have been following me on Twitter and Facebook, you will see photos of me testing Smart LTE over the weekend!

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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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10 comments

  1. hey hanna! what camera are you using? lucky you by the way to test the Philippines first ever LTE tech… so, is SMART going to upgrade all? how does the thing work?

  2. Me too! work gets more productive.. and we can play games more coz it’s super fast lol.. I didn’t know that you have to order calamansi muffin a day before if you want to get it in a box

  3. @eksi, it should be deployed in major cities this year or the next. and I was only using my blackberry camera (even for the video) amazing noh? my DSLR got broken on my last trip to boracay eh 🙁

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