Smart Communications just sent a press release stating that they will be “LTE ready” by the middle of 2012. To do this they will be installing Single Radio Base Stations on all of their cell sites. This technology allows them to activate LTE or HSPA+ at any of their existing 13,000+ stations. We’ve been part of the LTE beta test for sometime now and we’re definitely happy with the results we’re seeing. I’ve been consistently getting around 15mbps – 20mbps DL here at home (fortunately there’s LTE coverage here) allowing me to download 700mb files in a few minutes. The upload is equally as fast. I was able to upload a 95MB file in just 3 minutes. Globe also announced last year that they’re gearing up for LTE but they didn’t give out any launch dates yet.
Some thoughts:
- Will LTE get overcrowded? Fast now but will it slow down after more people connect to it?
- How much will LTE sell for? What will be the rates? How big is the data cap?
- What LTE devices will Smart bring to market? Will we see the LTE version of the Samsung Galaxy Note? Samsung Galaxy Nexus?
- This cannot replace your DSL because it will either be too expensive (due to data cap) or unstable.
What do you guys think?
