Smart awards $117-M expansion deal to Nokia

Leading cellular phone operator Smart Communications Inc. has awarded $117-million worth of contracts to Nokia for the expansion of its GSM network, company officials said yesterday.

Smart, a unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., said the deal is aimed at increasing its network coverage and enhancing multi-media services. The firm has close to 13 million subscribers as of last year.

"We want to service our growing subscriber base more efficiently and more innovatively. These investments will address our objectives on capacity expansion, preparation for future platforms, introduction of life-enhancing technologies as well as continuous service quality improvements," said Ramon Fernandez, Smart’s head for administration and materials management division.

The improvements will allow the firm to offer more user-friendly services as well as expand its present network, he said.

Company officials reported that Smart had 12.9 million subscribers as of end-2003 of which 10.1 million are under the brands Smart Gold, Smart Buddy, Addict Mobile and Smart ACeS. The remaining 2.9 million are serviced through a reseller agreement with Piltel under the GSM brand Talk ‘N Text. The total number is closer to 13 million or even more to date.

Officials said their deal with Nokia is part of the company’s network rollout aimed at increasing GSM network capacity and enhancing innovative multimedia services over high quality EDGE network.

Company officials said Smart is pursuing its thrust to provide telecommunications service to underserved and unserved areas of the country.

Smart networks services head Rolando Pena said that the enhancements of the company’s network will enable it to offer more powerful and user-friendly wireless services to our subscribers and help expand the network to more remote areas and to foray into new technologies.

Nokia Networks account director Markku Nieminen said Smart is a very aggressive company that is always on the look-out to deliver new services to their customers. "This contract is designed to accelerate packet data based services – expect a lot of excitement to come for its customers," he added.