Smart Communications Inc. has announced its Smart Bro WiMAX offering for wireless broadband, an upgrade from its previous Smart WiFi (
News -
Alert) Brand. Parent company Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) will also be reselling Smart Bro in place of myDSL-W, a similar wireless broadband service brand.
The new Smart Bro offering is a fixed wireless solution offering broadband Internet access. It rides on Smart’s nationwide cellular network, and is representative of the PLDT group’s strategy to provide a wide range of broadband connectivity solutions. Smart has been able to rapidly roll out the service even in far-flung areas because it integrated many portions of the wireless broadband network with its existing GSM cellular network.
The new product will be marketed to subscribers with new promotional bundles. Since it was introduced in The Philippines in September of last year, wireless broadband has boosted Internet usage in the country. The uptake in the service is most apparent in rural areas, according to Napoleon L. Nazareno, president of PLDT and Smart.
At the end of 2005, wireless broadband subscribers accounted for 22 percent of the total number of broadband subscribers of PLDT and Smart. Broadband capacity and subscribers have been doubling every year since 2002 and, by the end of 2005, the number of broadband users of the PLDT group more than doubled to 114,000 from 48,000 as of end-2004.
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Laura Stotler writes about IP Communications and related topics for TMCnet. She has covered VoIP and related technologies for seven years, contributing to
Internet Telephony magazine and TMCnet, and as a freelance writer. To see more articles, please visit:
Laura Stotler’s columnist page.
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