Smart tops network benchmarking survey

MANILA, Philippines — PLDT wireless subsidiary Smart Communications Inc. emerged on top of a network benchmarking survey in the country conducted by an international internet testing organization.

Smart won the Best in Test award from Germany-based internet benchmarking company umlaut as the network was cited for having the best and widest 4G/LTE coverage, and fastest upload and download speeds in the country.

Smart posted an overall score of 753 out of a maximum of 1,000 points in the annual umlaut benchmarking survey. The score includes Smart’s performance in terms of voice coverage, data coverage, 4G coverage, user download speed, user upload speed and data service availability.

Between 2018 and 2019, Smart also saw its quarterly benchmarking scores more than double year-on-year as customer experience improved across the country, according to umlaut.

“Congratulations to PLDT wireless subsidiary Smart Communications for winning the umlaut Mobile Benchmark and being awarded Best-in-Test. Our umlaut Mobile Benchmark is the de-facto industry standard, fairly and transparently assessing the global digital infrastructure,” umlaut CEO Hakan Ekmen said.

Smart said results of umlaut’s benchmarking survey follow similar findings by other international third-party internet rating firms such as Ookla and Opensignal which have also released their respective crowdsource-based studies on internet services in the country.

Ookla and Opensignal’s studies found Smart’s wireless network to be superior than that of competition.

“Our improved service performance is the outcome of several years of sustained investments in our network.  We have as a result been able to deliver progressively better quality services to our customers, enabling them to benefit from the growing range of data and digital services,” said Mario Tamayo, senior vice president for network planning and engineering for PLDT and Smart.

Conducted with more than 200 operators in over 120 countries worldwide, umlaut’s network benchmarks are widely accepted as the global de-facto industry standard.

Its crowdsourcing technology allows umlaut to collect data about real-world customer experience in a passive way from integrated background diagnosis processes in more than 900 diverse Android apps.

In the Philippines, umlaut’s crowd-based analysis was conducted over a period of six months. The analysis was based on 474 million samples collected from 474,000 users in both urban and non-urban areas.

“Benchmarking our performance using globally recognized standards gives us a view of where we are at compared with international operators and motivates us to keep improving our network to be at par with the rest of the world,” Tamayo said.

The Germany-based company also cited Smart for providing the best network performance during the country’s hosting of the 30th Southeast Asian Games in December.

As the official telecom partner of the 30th SEA Games, Smart deployed Massive MIMO, LTE and LTE-Advanced technologies to ensure superior customer experience, particularly for mobile data, in three main venues: Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City, Philippine Arena in Bulacan and New Clark City in Tarlac.

Outside the main arenas, Smart also achieved superior experience in the three main highways connecting these SEA Games venues—North Luzon Expressway (NLEx), Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx) and the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx), according to umlaut tests.

 “During the 30th SEA Games, Smart provided the highest data throughput rates in the arenas, as well as the best data throughput performance on the three main connecting roads,” umlaut said in a report.

As of the third quarter of 2019, Smart has increased the number of LTE base stations by 34 percent from its end-2018 number.