Smart accelerates LTE rollout

PLDT wireless subsidiary Smart Communications Inc. said more than 60 percent of its sites nationwide have already been upgraded to LTE, with 62 percent of these LTE sites already LTE-Advanced capable.

Smart said the accelerated deployment of LTE and LTEAdvanced sites nationwide has further driven mobile data usage, which increased faster than industry growth in the first half.

In line with its network up- grade efforts, Smart said mobile data traffic grew 79 percent in the first semester, higher than the industry year-on-year growth of 54 percent for the same period.

Smart has also launched up to 5-component-carrier (5CC) aggregation in Metro Manila’s most populous metropolis, Quezon City.

It has previously activated 5CC in Boracay and Marikina, where speeds of over 500 Mbps were achieved using 5CCcapable smartphones.

Carrier aggregation, according to the company, is a feature of LTE-A which enables the combination of two or more radio frequency bands in order to deliver bigger bandwidth and much faster data speeds to mobile phone users.

5CC carrier aggregation features the combination of five frequencies.