Globe, Smart among ‘most improved’ telcos globally

UK-BASED Opensignal Ltd. said Smart Communications, Inc. and Globe Telecom, Inc. had been identified as among the top 30 mobile network operators globally where users have seen “the greatest improvement” in 4G availability and video experience, respectively.

The two telco companies’ scores were “comfortably above the global average,” Opensignal, a wireless coverage mapping company, said in an e-mailed statement.

The report covers users’ mobile network experience in the last year, between the first six months of 2019 and the first half of this year, Opensignal said.

There are four identified critical measures of mobile network experience, namely: video experience, download speed experience, upload speed experience, and 4G availability.

Opensignal noted that the average proportion of time that users spent on the 4G network of PLDT Inc.’s wireless arm Smart grew by 17.9% between the first half of 2019 and first half of 2020.

Globe’s score for the video experience increased by 32.7%.

Globe users also “saw their average download speeds improve by 24.5%, “ Opensignal noted.

Opensignal’s video experience metric “measures the average video experience of its users on 3G and 4G networks for each operator, while the download speed experience metric measures the average download speed experienced by the users across an operator’s 3G, 4G and 5G networks.

“This citation is a testament to our commitment to improving the experience of our customers. As the country’s largest and only fully integrated telco, we will continue to invest in improving our network and our services, and we will benchmark our performance against countries like Vietnam and Thailand to be better. I think every Filipino deserves that kind of service,” Smart President and Chief Executive Officer and PLDT Chief Revenue Officer Alfredo S. Panlilio said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Gil B. Genio, chief technology and information officer of Globe, said: “Expect more of these remarkable improvements as we continue with our aggressive efforts to upgrade the network for better connectivity and service.”

Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin