After two months from the commercial rollout of their HSPA+, Globe has launched two consumer products that take advantage of the 4G technology – the Tonino Lamborghini broadband stick and the Samsung Galaxy S II – last night at the Heritage Hotel. The two products leverages the 4G mobile technology that Globe is offering to its customers that promises internet speeds as fast as 10 Mbps. Globe has apparently partnered with the famed Italian car maker Lamborghini in the express purpose of touting the achievable speeds of the Tattoo Tonino Lamborghini. The stick is currently the fastest mobile broadband stick in the country today, and is available for postpaid subscribers for only Php 2,199 per month.
Globe is also the first network operator to bring the HSPA+ enabled Samsung Galaxy S II to the country, which is able to use the newly minted 4G network of Globe. The Samsung Galaxy S II is exclusively available to Globe subscribers for free under My SuperSurf Plan 3799 starting June 27.
We were able to sit down with Peter Bithos, Globe Senior Advisor for Consumer Business and asked him point blank why Globe used the comparatively slower 4G technology HSPA+ when their main competitor, Smart, is using LTE which is much faster than HSPA+. “First off, we’re going to use both technologies. This isn’t a standards war. But why did we choose this one first? It’s because this one allows existing 3G customers to get faster speeds. Your existing 3G device will log-on to the HSPA+ network, but it will not log-on to an LTE network.” He then adds “we decided to listen to our customers and chose this standard, and while it may be slower on the theoretical side, but it helps our customers today, and they don’t have to upgrade their devices.” Globe is aggressively expanding their 4G network, and it seems that they have more tricks up their sleeves when it comes to 4G. We tried to pry more information from Bithos about Globe’s other plans for 4G devices and LTE rollout, but we weren’t able to get a definitive answer aside from a coy “soon” from him.
We did our own speedtest on a Globe Tattoo Tonino Lamborghini on a netbook, but the speed was underwhelming, as you can see on the picture above. While this speed is way faster than my regular, wired home line, it’s still fell a bit short of the promised speeds. A Globe exec told me that this is because of a number of factors, including multiple units present in the same venue stressing the system at once. We’re going to post a more exhaustive review of the speeds once we get our hands on our own review units.