Pricing and launch date of SMART LTE Confirmed
To those eagerly waiting for SMART to roll out their LTE services, you can now sign-up for the pre-registration. We also can confirm that the actual product will be a Huawei USB dongle (no LTE phones or pocket WiFi devices yet) and you can go as high as 42Mbps download speed. It will be priced at Php3,500 per month with a data cap of 10GB. We confirmed this from our contacts in SMART. Launch date is on August 25, 2012.
You might be thinking this is a bad deal but I’m definitely digging it. Here are my reasons why:
10 Mbps+ DSL lines here in the Philippines are priced higher
The Globe Tattoo Torque DSL Plan for 15 Mbps will set you back Php6,299 monthly. The PLDT myDSL 10 Mbps EXTREME PLAN costs Php4,000 per month. SMART LTE has the potential to give you 42 Mbps for Php3,500. And you can bring the dongle with you.
Be creative to make the most out of the 10GB
You can get a 1 Mbps DSL line at home which you use for normal stuff and for torrenting when you’re not at home. This can be your “default” internet connection. You can switch on LTE when you’re at home and you don’t want any waiting time when you’re surfing, downloading, or gaming. Just make sure you monitor your consumption so that you don’t go beyond the 10GB allocation so that you don’t pay more.
This set-up will cost Php4,500 per month. Php1,000 for the standard DSL and the Php3,500 for LTE. Not bad. That’s a pretty compelling package if you ask me.
If you’re an EXTREME downloader, this isn’t for you
If you download like 10 TV series episodes per week in HD plus a bunch of BluRay quality movies, SMART LTE isn’t for you. Just stick to DSL. It will take longer but it will be more cost effective. Just be mindful of the Fair Use Policy of your network.
Make sure there’s LTE signal in your area
This is the biggest pre-requisite. There has to be strong LTE signal in your area. If there’s none then don’t bother subscribing to this until Smart announces that your area is covered already. I’m very fortunate since LTE is quite strong in Greenhills area (where I live). During the beta testing I consistently hit 17-25 Mbps in my condo with LTE. Rawrness!
I’m already sold on getting this one to compliment my DSL. Definitely excited for August 25! Woooooot.