Globe’s LTE service, Tattoo Black, has officially been launched as of tonight. The plans are still the same when they announced it a couple of weeks ago – plan Php 1799 nabs you the Huawei LTE USB stick – also used by Smart’s LTE service – that nabs you up to 28 Mbps speeds. Pony up Php 2499 and you get the Tattoo Elite which gives you up to 42 Mbps a month. Tattoo Elite subscribers will also get a dedicated hotline for customer issues, priority handling in stores and a Globe personal relationship manager, complimentary tickets to Tattoo events and a 24/7 concierge service. Unlike Smart’s initial offer, Globe is not placing a data cap on their LTE service which means it’s unlimited data until January 31 2013.
We did a Speedtest on Globe’s LTE service, and it seems that their service is faster than Smart’s offering, at least for our location (Greenbelt 5, near Felix).
Smart was able to log a speed of 24.24 Mbps, while Globe was able to log speeds of 59.07 Mbps. Like we said earlier, both Globe and Smart’s LTE sticks were provided by Huawei, and were both identical. Unlike Smart though, Globe’s initial roll-out of their LTE service will be around Makati at first, with other locations added gradually as the service matures. No timetable has yet been set, so if you’re looking to get Globe’s LTE service, you better live in or around the Makati area. You can still use it without LTE we suspect, and just like Smart’s service, it’ll just downgrade your speeds down to HSPA or HSPA+. We’ll be asking Globe for a demo stick so we can verify the speeds ourselves. Looks like we have an LTE competition on our hands, folks.
[UPDATE #1] Globe’s Tattoo Black Elite Plan (Php 2499) users will get a 15GB cap per month after January 31, 2013. Regular Tattoo Black users will be getting 12GB caps after January 31, 2013.