Smart Communications, Inc. finally turned on its first 5G cell sites in Clark Freeport Zone and at the Makati Central Business District on November 14, 2018.
PLDT and Smart made news a week ago when they announced that Clark will be the first Smart 5G City. It turns out that their first 5G roll outs will be happening in both Clark and Makati.
Huawei provided the 5G network equipment that Smart uses in Makati while Ericsson’s equipment is used in Clark. Both are 3GPP compliant and operates under the 5G NR or New Radio specifications.
In an official statement, PLDT and Smart CEO Manuel Pangilinan said,
“I am happy to announce that PLDT and Smart just fired up the first 5G cell sites in the country, putting the company alongside the first tier operators in the world to have deployed live 5G base stations. This is part of our commitment to bring the most advanced technologies to the country.”
Previous tests conducted by Smart showed 5G network speeds of up to 312 Megabytes per second. That’s more than 20 times faster than the current average 4G LTE network speeds in the country.
Aside from crazy fast data connection, 5G will also enable new technologies as a result of its very low latency. This includes autonomous cars, internet of things (IoT) applications, logistics, smart cities and smart homes among others.
Meanwhile, 5G smartphones will be commercially available in the Philippines starting next year.
Source: Smart Newsroom
