Gio Bacareza, Smart head for Broadband, Internet and Data Servicess said the new dongle, due out this week, will use the evolved High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA+) technology.
HSPA is an amalgamation of two mobile telephony protocols--High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA).
These protocols extend and improve the performance of existing WCDMA protocols, an air interface standard found in 3G mobile telecommunications networks.
HSPA+, meanwhile, is a wireless broadband standard defined in 3GPP release 7 and 8 of the WCDMA specification. This provides data rates up to 84 Mbit/s in the downlink and 22 Mbit/s in the uplink with multiple input, multiple output technologies and higher order modulation.
Bacareza said that the services will be initially available in selected areas in the country were the 154 HSPA+ based station located--major urban centers including Iloilo City in Visayas and Zamboanga City in Mindanao and in Metro Manila.
For this year , Bacareza said that they expect their mobile broadband subscribers to reach 1.4 million.
To match the expected growth in subscribers, Smart, together with its parent company the Philippine Long Distance Co. (PLDT) has earmarked P67 billion to modernize for over two years to update and install network elements, wireless base stations, fiber optic cables and international gateways to further improve quality of service across all fronts.
Of the total, P34 billion was allocated for this year. P8.5 billion of which will be used for the upgrade of Smart and PLDT transport network.
Part of the transport network expansion, Smart said it has increased its access network capacity by 51 percent from 18.2 Gbps in May this year to 27.4 Gbps in July.
Smart Packet Core network has also increased by 89 percent from 14.5 Gbps in May to 27.4 Gbps in July .
To know the impact of its modernization program to its subscribers, Smart has asked independent professional engineering service provider NESIC Philippines, Inc. (NPI) to conduct a Speed tests on its mobile broadband services .
According to NESIC Philippines Inc. (NPI), Smart Bro Plug-It has outperformed its nearest competitor.
The NPI tests, which were conducted in 100 locations around the country between July 4 to July 6 showed that Smart Bro outperformed Globe Tattoo 100 percent of the time in terms of average download speeds.
The methodology used to measure the data was Speedtest.net and the test server is located in San Francisco, USA (SF Monkey Brains server). The average speed test is taken from a sample of five tests.
Of the total, 29 tests were done in Metro Manila; 21, Northern Luzon; 18, Southern Luzon; 15, Visayas and 17, Mindanao. While 32 tests were conducted in residential; 44, commercial and 24, school.
The NPI results also showed that there is an average difference of 0.74 megabytes per second (Mbps) between Smart Bro and Globe Tattoo with 26 areas reflecting a 1Mbps discrepancy or greater.
The speed test was commissioned by Smart. NPI was also the one who conducted the speed test for Globe last year.
In terms of peak speed, Smart Bro also beat the competition 99 percent of the time with an average difference of 1Mbps.
Globe, on the other hand, beat Smart Bro in only one of the 100 test locations -- at the Matutina Restaurant in Dagupan.
Peak speed refers to the absolute fastest speed while average speed takes all results into account.
"Our susbscribers are now enjoying the benefits of our improved network," Rolando G. Peña , Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Smart Technology Group Head said
To date, PLDT and Smart have a total of 42,000kms of fiber optic cables arranged in loops, with an additional 3,000kms of cabling set to be installed before end-2011.
A "looped" configuration makes a network more resilient as it offers alternative means of transmitting data even when primary line of communication have been severed.
Smart is also pioneering the fastest 4G technology in the Philippines with the introduction of LTE (long term evolution) technology called Smart Evolution.
