Smart edges out Globe in service tests

MANILA, Philippines—The mobile communications unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. outperformed competitor Globe Telecom Inc. in the second quarter in terms of quality of service, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said in a statement.

Citing data culled in the three months to June, the NTC said PLDT’s Smart Communications edged out Globe across five parameters.

In the area of block calls, or grade of service parameter, 1.26 percent of PLDT’s calls failed to connect. Globe, on the other hand, registered 1.46 percent.

Smart’s drop call rate was at 1.07 percent, while that of Globe was 1.4 percent, the statement showed.

The minimum standard was a drop call rate of 2 percent, the NTC statement showed.

In terms of average signal quality category, which measures voice quality, Smart scored 0.72 while Globe scored 0.91. The minimum acceptable range is from 0 to 4, with 0 being the best quality.

Smart also performed better in terms of call set up time, or the time it takes for a network to activate the called party. Smart met quality standards with a score of 11.12 seconds against Globe’s 12 seconds. The acceptable industry standard is below 14 seconds, the statement showed.

Smart led in terms of average receive signal level, registering -65.52 dBm against Globe’s -71.45 dBm.

This parameter measures the signal strength provided by the serving cell site to the mobile handset of the subscriber while a conversation is ongoing.

“Just as in the last quarter, Smart had a clear edge in all five parameters of the Second Quarter Quality of Service (QoS) Benchmarking tests of the NTC,” said Smart public affairs head Ramon R. Isberto in a statement. “To us it’s a reminder to keep improving and strengthening our network even as we move to more advanced services like LTE or Long-Term Evolution.”

Globe on Tuesday questioned the results of the NTC benchmarking tests.

“The network performance measurement equipment of Globe generates network quality KPIs and more extensive drive tests done by Globe, including the NTC drive test routes, showed a major difference from the latest NTC test results,” said Cris Crisostomo, Globe Head of Service Quality, Network Technical Group. “This may indicate a need to jointly review the latest NTC results in the interest of transparency.”

Crisostomo said Globe had already registered its concerns with the NTC.