Well, here we are at Smart’s official launch of their LTE service, and frankly there’s not a lot of new news to tell you guys. We’ve already covered a heck of a lot of material for Smart’s launch at our previous LTE coverage. What we did learn was that if you get the LTE service now, you’re in for a treat – Smart is lifting the data cap for new subscribers until October 25, so essentially if you sign up now, you’ll be enjoying blistering speeds without data caps. Once October 25 rolls around though, you will have to abide by Smart’s 10GB per month rule. Go over that cap, and you’ll be charged Php 450 per 1GB. Smart has also said that they’ve expanded their LTE sites all over the metro to accommodate the commercial launch. During our beta test of the device, we were told that there were more or less 20 LTE sites scattered around the metro. This time around, Smart said that there’s around 24 LTE sites in Makati alone, which means that the telco has significantly expanded their LTE reach in time for their roll-out. Smart has included a handy map for users to see where the closest LTE site is to their vicinity. You can check it out here.
On the device front, Smart will initially be offering the LTE dongle for now, with an expected roll-out of the Pocket WiFi device next month. Unfortunately Smart was a bit vague on when exactly their LTE phones would land – it seems that LTE mobile phones are in high demand, and it will be a while before the telco gets their hand on LTE mobile devices for their LTE service. Rumors are that they’ll be able to get some on October at the earliest, but that’s currently unconfirmed. We’ve asked Smart for another go-around with their LTE service to see how much it’s improved after the beta and we’ll update you guys once we have more.