OK so this is funny. I heard a rumor that the LTE SIM cards were reactivated in time for SMART’s launch tomorrow. It so happened that I *forgot* (I really did!) to return my LTE SIM + USB dongle to Abbie Real and Meg Ruiz.
While waiting for a meeting I decided to unearth the USB device and plug it into my MacBook (running Windows 7). Turns out, the rumor mill was true — the telco had re-activated the SIM cards! Usually, you’d get a registration error when connecting to the mobile helper. I guess there are indeed rewards to those who … don’t forget to return their beta devices. Ahihihi.
As I write this post I’m downloading (a legitimate copy of) the newly released Counterstrike: Global Offensive via Steam. For the past 2 days I’ve been trying to download the 4.x GB file only to encounter suspended downloads and restart errors which is typical for new games being released via the Steam store. Well guess what? LTE works!
So here are the stats:
The Bonifacio Global City area is covered by LTE signal. Indoors I am not experiencing full bars — but 2 bars of signal gives me about 10-15mbps download speeds which translates to roughly 1MB/second. See the photo above. Before hitting publish on the blog post, I went in to check the download and I’m now at 49% completion which is basically 2.0GB of the total 4.x GB in less than 10 minutes. I’m streaming one HD films on Vimeo in the background.
After about 7 minutes:
PLEASE NOTE: Though I was a SMART beta tester and have SMART as an advertiser on my blog, this speed test isn’t endorsed by SMART at all. In fact, I’m not even supposed to have this USB device. Oops. To Meg and Abbie, sorry for forgetting to return! I’ll buy you J.Co. Anyway, it’s fast naman eh! =)
Disclaimer #2: I’m currently using the beta USB dongle from HUAWEI. I’m not sure if this is the same one they are launching LTE with. This is the LTE test a day before the official launch.
2 replies on ““Real world” SMART LTE speed test (they secretly reactivated the beta SIM cards — ahihihi)”
[…] even during the last days before launch a telco delivers less than 20% without any network load, albeit celebrated by its fanboys. The same 20% requiring a 100% payment by the customer. And the same fanboys who will go public […]
-Its like a ferrari with 1 liter of gasoline…useless!
-pareho lang sila ng sister company nyang SUN CELLULAR! 3.6mbps daw pero di
nila nilalagay sa ad nila na 2AM-6AM mo lang marereach ang speed na to! KALOKOHAN!!!
-10gig a month nowadays is crazy.
-Even if they double the cap to 20gb, it still seems too low. I don’t see the point of having that
much speed if you’re limited in terms of the bandwith. Browsing speed wouldn’t have a lot of
difference between a 3mbps connection and a 41mbps connection.
-42Mbps can eat up 10GB in roughly 30 minutes of continuous, contiguous data transfer.
Spread that out over 30 days, and you might as well just be on 1Mbps.
-42 Mbps capped at 10 GB per month? That’s not SMART.
-precisely, what would you do with the speed and have a cap?
-10 GB/month? No way.