MANILA, Philippines — Smart Communications Inc. has been recognized for delivering the best mobile user experience in the country by international internet testing organization umlaut.
Germany-based umlaut gave Smart the “Best in Test” award, as well as recognized PLDT’s wireless unit for delivering the best-rated broadband coverage, user download experience and latency experience, despite challenges of the pandemic and more stringent benchmarking guidelines.
“We strive to be better every day as we serve our customers and the nation at large. This award is another testament to the hard work that our network teams put in to ensure that we deliver the best experience to our customers, despite restrictions brought about by the pandemic,” Smart president and CEO and PLDT chief revenue officer Alfredo Panlilio said.
Smart posted an overall score of 747 out of a maximum of 1,000 points in umlaut’s benchmarking survey.
The score includes Smart’s performance in terms of broadband coverage, download speed, and latency, which refers to the time it takes for data to make a round trip through the network.
The analysis tested and measured 403 million samples from 779,000 users over six months.
“Smart is the best tested operator in all tested categories, a remarkable feat in these challenging COVID times. Our umlaut mobile benchmark is the de-facto industry standard, fairly and transparently assessing the global digital infrastructure,” umlaut CEO Hakan Ekmen said.
This is the third consecutive year that Smart received umlut’s Best in Test award.
Mario Tamayo, PLDT and Smart senior vice president and head of technology, said the company has used umlaut’s benchmarking standards to stay focused on continuously improving the network.
“We use these awards as guide for us to monitor our performance. The key here is consistency and making sure that we stay on top,” Tamayo said.
Smart’s mobile network covers 96 percent of the population, and is supported by PLDT’s most extensive fiber network, which is now at over 478,000 kilometers as of the end March.