Smart cuts mobile Internet rates

12:56 am | Monday, October 8th, 2012

MANILA, Philippines—Smart Communications has reduced the prices of its Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile plans as it tries to undercut rival Globe Telecom, which also recently unveiled its own LTE services.

The mobile unit of dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) announced over the weekend that it would now offer monthly LTE plans at P1,749 for 10 gigabytes (GB) worth of Internet use.

Smart also introduced a new LTE-enabled pocket WiFi device that could be linked to several mobile devices at the same time.

“Smart LTE Plan 1749 gives Filipinos a choice. This is a true LTE service which runs on true LTE speeds,” said Lloyd Manaloto of Smart Broadband Internet Data Services.

Smart’s LTE plans offer mobile connection speeds of up to 42 megabits per second (Mbps), significantly higher than the speeds available on previous third-generation (3G) mobile technologies

With the introduction of the new P1,749-a-month plan, Smart also announced that its previous P3,500 monthly LTE service would get a boost, giving subscribers 21 GB worth of surfing, up from the previous 10 GB.

The data caps for all plans will take effect next January. Until then, users will be able to surf as much as they want without incurring additional costs.

Basic LTE plans will be available through USB dongles that connect to laptop or desktop computers. Subscriber can opt to upgrade to mobile WiFi devices for an additional one-time fee of P2,000.

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Tags: Business , Internet , long-term evolution (LTE) , Smart Communications

pheds

ayusin muna ang problema sa 3G bago kayo mag LTE…
shane oy

di pa rin ako pede maglaro ng secret world saka GW2 sa bundok sa amin 10G lang eh. bakit may cap lagi sa pinas?
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Monopoly/134038403339475 88Cindy

10GB is equivalent to about 1min of use per day
http://profile.yahoo.com/FT56X4BS2DCHCROOGJO27G2TJQ Marc jet Bautista

GAYA-GAYA PUTO MAYA
Jose Marie Maquinay

Rather than introducing LTE prematurely, I hope they focused first on providing reliable 2G/3G speeds first…

ninestrokes

I’m sure they were planning to bypass 2G internet entirely (who would prefer paying P10 for 30 minutes of intermittent internet connection at 56k bandwidth anyway?) But I agree with your sentiment, I hope they improve the current infrastructure before committing to a rollout of a new technology.

Also, what’s with this trend of limiting the data people could use? 10GB isn’t much. I consume around 1.5GB a day primarily by watching videos. I would consume 10GB in a week. 10GB would be enough at DSL speeds but at 42Mbps, its a bit of a farcry to assume 10GB is enough. I think this is profit-mongering at its best. Shame :/

Juan Pinako sa Cruz

Ninestrokes: you have too much time in your hands watching videos on line. Hehehe. Seriously, you are paying for premium service, hence the price. While I do think the price is a bit steep, I would not care as much as I don’t think it is essential to my day-to-day business for now — 3G speeds suffice for work email anywhere I am. If you don’t want to pay for such, then utilize the 3G data plans. The datacap is to ensure that people use bandwidth fairly — you pay for what you consume. For now, they will still continue this policy to regain the initial investment laid out for the LTE infrastructure. LTE isn’t cheap, as they had to acquire entirely new systems (as LTE is NOT backward-compatible).

When time comes that LTE becomes more widespread, the price will drop… same as how 3G is now more affordable. In the pipeline, all services in the future will be IP-based, hence, LTE will be a forefront channel for delivering not just data via HTTP, but also VOIP.

Jose Marie: I agree with you totally. I hope they improved first their 2G/3G network. As it is still their core market and business. But from a business point of view, why would they purchase more 2G/3G technology when in a few years time, all traffic will be IP-based?

So how about a compromise… a datacap with a cheaper price. Say 8GB for 999 per month, then pay additional 100 per additional gig of data needed. Pay-on-demand, if you wish for LTE services.
ninestrokes

Fair assessment Juan, but here’s where i find telcos to be overcharging us a bit.

If it was truly a fair policy then I have no qualms with it, but take context into play. To put into perspective, 1 GB is equal to 250 medium/average sized images. Those images may be downloaded involuntarily from multiple sources – from news webbies we visit (5-6 images in the front page alone) to ubiquitous ads found on every app we use. An hour’s worth of browsing later, we unknowingly download dozens of MBs worth of data. What more with a fast connection right?

A fair policy should take into account a person’s average internet consumption. To veer away from my point a bit though, I completely agree with you that I lean on the heavier internet usage side of the spectrum and thus have to pay more. But still, a 2011 study shows that an average user consumes 17GB a month. And it is growing exponentially. A 7 GB deficit is not a small matter. It represents a 41% takeaway. Sure, you might say it is a recuperation tactic to fund capital overlay on investments, but my question is: will the telcos drop their prices when they improve their services, get tons of subscribers in and they find that their policies are no longer fair (which it isn’t to begin with) to the average net consumer (i.e. their notion of what’s fair is no longer fair to the average user)

I think a fair-use policy should peg the data cap at fair consumption rates. They should peg their rates at how much an average user is projected to consume, and these studies should be done annually in view of modifying their policies to suit demand. Pay on demand. Yes :)

AnaIvanovic2

I don’t know about you, but I get HSDPA (3.5G) anywhere in Metro Manila and my speed on average is anywhere from 2.2 to 2.9 Mbps as tested with SpeedTest on Android. Smart Postpaid user here. I’m definitely satisfied.

omangat

mababaw ang kaligayahan.
Jose Marie Maquinay

Since you are in Manila, that speed is expected. BUT try doing SpeedTest here in Laguna (or the rest of the PH), your lucky to get even 1Mbps…

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