Smart ties up with Singapore’s StarHub for LTE roaming service

MANILA, Philippines - Smart Communications Inc., the wireless arm of dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), became the first company in the country to establish a long term evolution (LTE) roaming partnership with a foreign company.

Emmanuel Lorenzana, executive vice president and head of wireless consumer division of Smart, said in a statement the company has established an interconnect link with StarHub of Singapore providing the infrastructure needed to connect subscribers of one operator to the network of another operator.

“After being the first and only telco to commercially launch a multiband LTE offering in the Philippines, Smart solidifies its dominance in the LTE space by being the first Philippine telco to set up an interconnect link with a foreign operator,” he said.

StarHub is a fully integrated info-communications company in Singapore with an LTE network providing connection speeds of up to 75 Mbps.

StarHub head of marketing and products Chan Kin Hung said the company is looking forward to begin offering commercial LTE roaming service in the Philippines to StarHub customers soon.

“We are pleased to work with Smart, our Conexus Mobile Alliance roaming partner in the Philippines, to set up an LTE roaming interconnect infrastructure between Singapore and the Philippines,” the official said.

Smart is offering dongle-bundled LTE plans that currently allow unlimited Internet surfing at blazing speeds. It also recently introduced the Smart LTE Pocket WiFi, which allows people to enjoy LTE speeds on any Wi-Fi-enabled device.

Currently the fastest fourth-generation (4G) wireless connection in the world, LTE is capable of speeds as fast as 100 Mbps, making it ideal for high-speed broadband applications. It allows users to stream high-definition (HD) videos faster, download HD movies in minutes, and play lag-free online games.

Early last month, Smart announced it was negotiating with several telco providers in Asia including StarHub for possible LTE roaming partnership.

Smart is also in talks with NTT Docomo of Japan, Hutchison Telecommunications of Hong Kong, and KT Corp. of South Korea to allow its subscribers to surf the Internet at blazing speeds abroad.

Smart became the first telco provider to commercially deploy the LTE technology in Asia last August.

NTT Docomo, Hutchison, KT, and StarHub are all members of Conexus – one of biggest mobile alliances in Asia.

The organization seeks to develop and enhance international roaming and corporate mobile services for the benefit of the member-companies’ customers.

The Conexus alliance has a combined customer base of more than 330 million mobile subscribers. Of the total number, about 50.9 million are subscribers of Smart.

“Our links with StarHub are being set up as we speak, but we continue to pursue interconnect links with other leading telcos under the Conexus Mobile Alliance. We are working hard to turn this into a commercial service soon,” Smart Global Access and International Services head Tina Mariano said.