Smart logs fastest LTE speed, Globe tops coverage

MANILA, Philippines — Smart Communications Inc. delivered the fastest Long Term Evolution (LTE) speeds in the country, while Globe Telecom Inc. had greater LTE availability in the May to July period, according to the latest report of research firm OpenSignal.

In a report, OpenSignal said Smart continued to hold the LTE or 4G speed award from May to July through its average download speed of 10.55 Mbps, compared to Globe’s 7.16 Mbps.

The results of OpenSignal’s September report were based on over one billion measurements on 62,502 devices from May 1 to July 31.

Smart’s latest 4G download speed went up compared to the 9.87 Mbps recorded in OpenSignal’s State of Mobile Networks: Philippines report released in March, while Globe’s 4G download speed slipped from 7.42 Mbps.

While Smart continued to hold the title of offering the fastest LTE download speed in the country, Globe took the prize for greater LTE availability as users were able to latch onto Globe’s LTE signals 62.59 percent of the time compared to Smart’s 52.71 percent.

In terms of 3G download speed, the latest report showed Smart had an average speed of 2.36 Mbps, while Globe had an average speed of 2.25 Mbps.

Compared to results shown in OpenSignal’s March report, average 3G download speeds provided by Smart and Globe improved from 2.12 Mbps and 2.24 Mbps, respectively.

As for overall speed for 3G and 4G, Smart was the winner with an average download speed of 4.16 Mbps, ahead of Globe’s 3.39 Mbps.

In OpenSignal’s March report, Smart had an overall average speed of 3.41 Mbps, while Globe had 3.33 Mbps.

“In general, speeds in the Philippines remain slow, well below both the global 4G average of 16.2 Mbps and the global 3G average of 4.4 Mbps, as measured in our recent State of LTE report,” OpenSignal said.

As for 4G latency or the measure of delay in data experienced as it makes a trip through the network, Smart beat Globe as it had an average latency of 57.57 milliseconds (ms), while the Ayala-led telco had 69.03 ms.

In terms of average 3G latency, Smart had 181.78 ms, while Globe had 186.82 ms.