Cignal partners with Smart to power remote areas

MANILA, Philippines — Cignal, the country’s largest Pay-TV and provider of Direct-To-Home satellite services, was chosen by Smart Communications as its provider for satellite broadband services, a testament in Cignal’s expertise in providing satellite-based services across the country.

Smart is utilizing Cignal’s VSAT technology as a broadband backhaul in areas that are difficult to reach through landbased networks. By doing so, Smart Communications expands availability of broadband services for its subscribers in areas that have low to no data coverage.

More and more of rural communities in coastal and highland municipalities are getting connected to the rest of the country as the world continues to use their smartphones for voice and data communications. Smart Communications, the largest and only integrated telecommunications company in the country, is now better able to respond to the clamor for a reliable, all-weather internet connectivity using Cignal’s VSAT service facilities.

To date, their VSAT service is active in select cell sites across the country: from Batanes, Calanasan and Kabugao in Apayao up north, to Kalayaan and San Vicente in Palawan, and down to the coastal areas municipalities in Tawi-Tawi and Basilan in Mindanao.

Cignal was also quick in taking action to support Smart to provide its all-weather broadband technology to affected communities critically hit by Typhoon Rolly back in November. One of the areas badly affected was the Bicol Region, in which Catanduanes province was placed under a state of calamity. The Smart and Cignal partnership paved the way to power 10 cell sites in the island province in order to assist communities in recuperating, while offering its residents broadband restoration to stay connected.