3G launch ‘huge success’ — Smart
By Mary Ann Ll. Reyes
The Philippine Star 02/16/2006
A day after it beat its rival Globe Telecom in launching 3G (third generation mobile technology), Smart Communications has described its launch as a huge success.
"An evaluation of the country’s first taste of 3G through Smart shows positive results," Butch Jimenez, head of Smart’s wireless communications division, told The STAR " We had almost 100,000 subscribers with 3G phones enter our network, many of them trying the various services 3G had to offer."
Smart is spending around $300 million over a five-year network rollout period for its 3G. About $60 million will be spent this year and next year and already, around 100 Smart cellsites nationwide are 3G-equipped.
Jimenez disclosed that video calls from multi-points nationwide registered in their system. Many of the video calls originated from Metro Manila to various key provincial cities such as Cebu, Davao and Baguio. There were also video calls made from province to province such as Cebu to Iloilo and calls made from as far north as Baguio to as far south as Mindanao.
Video streaming was also a popular service that Smart 3G subscribers tried. "From an average of 10 hits per hour in our WAP site which allows access to our exclusive 3g content, it went as high up as over 700 hits when we launched 3G," Jimenez added.
Traditional services such as voice and text remained robust even with higher capacity required to accommodate these new 3G services.
"We applaud our network team for a great job," Jimenez said. "There were minimal technical glitches experienced."
The network rollout continues, and Jimenez shared that with the successful launch, Smart will have more resolve in rolling out at an even faster pace than before. When asked about exactly how many number of 3G cellsites they have, Jimenez said they have more cellsites up than Globe, Sun and CURE put together.
Smart, Globe, Sun Cellular, and CURE were all granted 3G frequencies by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) last December.
Information coming from the Smart wireless centers nationwide indicate a strong interest in the 3G service. Many Smart subscribers flocked to the wireless centers asking about phone upgrades from 2G to 3G. Smart said it intends to launch 3G phone upgrade plans very soon. A number of giant corporations have also indicated interest in acquiring 3G services from Smart.
Jimenez also expects handset manufacturers to aggressively go out to the market as well. "We expect handset vendors to be pro-active in pushing 3G handsets into the market. We’ve launched the product and now, we hope the handset manufacturers and their dealers do their share in bringing affordable 3G handsets to the consumers. Whoever is the first manufacturer to give the public a great deal will eventually own the handset market for 3G," he emphasized.
Jimenez dodged questions related to Globe’s complaint to the NTC about his P10 per call from PLDT to Smart. "All I can say is that while Globe spends its time complaining to the NTC trying to stop our P10 per call, we in Smart and PLDT work day and night to launch innovative products," he said.
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