A mid-year report of London-based wireless coverage mapping firm OpenSignal has revealed that Globe Telecoms leads in 4G availability in the Philippines although it is Smart Communications which has a faster 4G speed.
In its “Mobile Networks Update” report that was released on Wednesday, Sept. 13, OpenSignal said the users of its app were able to latch onto Globe’s LTE signals more than 62.6% of the time. But the report also noted that whenever its testers were able to make a Smart 4G connection, they enjoyed a much faster experience.
Both operators, however, saw sizable improvements in their availability scores since OpenSignal’s last test in March. Smart’s availability jumped 12-percentage points in its measurements, while Globe’s availability increased more than 7-percentage points.
Smart, however, held onto OpenSignal’s 4G speed award with an average download of 10.6 Mbps, increasing slightly over the last six months. Meanwhile, both operators were tied for the 3G speed prize.
In general, speeds in the Philippines remained slow, well below both the global 4G average of 16.2 Mbps and the global 3G average of 4.4 Mbps, the report indicated.
“While we recorded a tie for overall speed six months ago, Smart claimed the award outright in our latest test period. By virtue of the big increase in its availability score, Smart was able to deliver its faster LTE connections to customers more often, leading to an overall speed of 4.2 Mbps in our measurements,” it concluded.
