Globe mulls over LTE for Mobile Broadband

Globe Telecom and NEC have been testing LTE (Long Term Evolution) in the Philippines as early as May this year and based on successful field results, it could be the telecom’s next upgrade path to provide better and faster mobile broadband services.

3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), is the latest standard in the mobile network technology tree that produced the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSxPA network technologies.

Their trials achieved a peak rate of around 60Mbps downlink data throughput rate at the 10MHz bandwidth.

Globe began the trial of LTE technology early this year in partnership with NEC Corporation. Following the lab tests in May at the Globe 3G LTE test bed at the Valero Technopark in Makati, Globe and NEC conducted field trials in Quezon City as part of Phase 1 of this project. The Phase 1 field trial verified a variety of LTE functions such as quality of service; latency and hand-over within urban areas were tested as these are required for commercial use of the technology.

Was invited to see the testing but was unable to go. However, they sent me this screenshot of a test file transfer via Filezilla.

The graph with the red spikes above reads a sustained speed of 52Mbps.

The DU Meter above shows an average speed of 46Mbps downstream and just under 1Mbps for upstream. The upstream speed doesn’t look anything impressive though.

I previously wrote a short commentary that the bandwidth situation in the Philippines is all about capacity and not speed.

Globe reports that as of end September 2010, their broadband subscriber base grew by 95% to reach 1,006,460, nearly double the 517,355 broadband subscribers reported in the same period last year. As the number of broadband users in the Philippines hit critical mass, we might see more focus on speed soon when capacity has been optimized by the telcos.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

17 Comments

Jim Ayson says:

14 years ago

That Globe presentation posted on Slideshare shows that LTE is newer technology that brings us closer to LTE, then Globe goes ahead and rolls out the older HSPA+ anyway. What was up with that decision?
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Mylink says:

14 years ago

with that speed + fair use policy = not interested
whats the use of having that much speed when your limited to 1gb download per day?
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islacom philippines says:

14 years ago

Globe Telecom – “Fair User Clause” 1GB cap space for Globe Tattoo Plug-it (prepaid/postpaid), Globe Wimax, Globe prepaid and postpaid.

Thats the truth!
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James Richard says:

14 years ago

here is another link showing screenshot taken from speedtest.net

you can see here the upstream value at 7Mbps above.

http://www.gameops.net/2010/11/globe-telecom-tests-lte-in-quezon-city.html
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air-kobe says:

14 years ago

fair rates: LTE unli 1,200/month. 3g-hsdpa unli 699/month. both must be accompanied with globe regular plan. – or am i just dreaming?
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chl says:

14 years ago

The minimum price of LTE service will be somewhere PHP4,000/mth or more. If you look at that pricing, the customer can only be corporates and residential numbers that no more than one or two hundred thousand at best. If Globe cannot make the system profitable with those numbers, it can’t role it out. Given the slow upload speed, it really can’t get corporate numbers either. Its not going to take 50% penetration to get there but but it will take the doubling of internet broadband subscriber in the horizon of Globe – maybe 3 years.
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Guy says:

14 years ago

Great work Globe. Looking forward to a cheaper rates.
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petken says:

14 years ago

Sa Testing lang yan… Sa Actual na icacap na yan ng Globe…
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Android says:

14 years ago

agree with the capacity… great news for Globe…
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James Richard says:

14 years ago

i was there when this press release from Globe was held in Holy Spirit Q.C… I was part of the team who installed and test this LTE… the screenshot you posted only show the downstream test (UDP or FTP) using Filezilla that’s why downstream value is greater than upstream.. the upstream value is in the range 7Mbps above… there is a separate test for the upstream… ^_^

maybe try to ask also for the screenshot for the test from speedtest.net ^_^
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Jun says:

14 years ago

yeah.. hope it will be much cheaper.. :)
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dongv says:

14 years ago

great new, but the BIG ? is how much or how expensive is it for us consumers?
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Jon says:

14 years ago

Improve capacity and stability first. Also, get rid of the bandwidth pirates, those using techniques to access the Internet for free. I’m sure these freeloaders contribute somehow to the congestion us paying subscribers suffer.
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