Philippines operator Smart Communications reports it has increased the number of LTE base stations deployed across the country by 10 percent in the first half of this year. Smart has also increased the capacity of its LTE network by reallocating its assigned 1800 Mhz frequency from 2G to 4G/LTE. As a result, 3,785 Smart base stations are now providing additional capacity for its LTE network. Smart’s LTE service is now available in 91 percent of the country’s municipalities and serves 94 percent of the population.
These network upgrades also enabled Smart to support the 36 percent increase in mobile data usage during the first six months of the year, as more people worked and studied at home, and as more businesses relied on online services to continue serving their customers during the COVID-19 quarantine. Mobile traffic reached 1.3 Exabytes in the first half of the year, more than double the traffic in the same period of 2019.
Source: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/smart-expands-lte-service-to-94-of-philippines-population--1350496