See how both telcos stack up

OpenSignal has officially announced their newest report, dubbed Our State of Mobile Networks for the Philippines which contains a bunch of interesting data in terms of performance for both Smart and Globe.

So, let’s dive right into it. In terms of sheer LTE speeds, Smart takes the cake over Globe, as the telco surpassed with an average download speed of 9.9 Mbps compared to Globe’s 7.4 Mbps.

Globe leads in 4G LTE availability, however, as OpenSignal states that their testers were able to find a Globe LTE signal 55.3% of the time. Smart LTE signal was a little elusive however, as they were only able to latch onto it 40% of the time.

Both Smart and Globe tie in terms of download speeds in the 3G sector however, barely breaking above 2.24 Mbps in average. Both companies also tie in overall download speeds (3.41 Mbps for Smart and 3.33 Mbps for Globe) and network latency (55.64ms for Globe and 53.32ms for Smart).

Unfortunately, the problems with mobile data remains. OpenSignal notes that while LTE debuted in the PH back in 2012, the country’s 4G networks are still behind much of the world in terms of performance. The global average for LTE speeds is 17.4 – and despite Smart’s lead in speed, it still falls way behind.

Despite this both Smart and Globe are aggressively expanding their LTE footprint in the PH. Both telcos have recently pointed out that red tape and limited access to areas occupied by exclusive villages are to blame for the lack of physical cellsites and infrastructure in the Philippines. Department of Information and Communications Technology Secretary Rodolfo A. Salalima has earlier said that the processing of licenses and permits for putting up infostructure and infrastructure necessary for telecommunications should only be seven days, and that President Duterte is crafting an EO to help aid in that regard.