Smart Communications Tops Quality of Service Again

The National Telecommunications Commission  has released the Quality of Service (QoS) benchmark tests for the first quarter of 2013. Smart Communications led all five categories again, but both networks passed the test.

The QoS tests measures the performance by using the following key performances indices.

1. Blocked Calls or Grade of Service —percentage of calls that were not given access by the network.
2. Dropped Call Rate —percentage of on-going calls that were involuntarily terminated.
3. Average Receive Signal Level—signal strength that was being provided by the serving cellsite to the mobile handset of the subscriber while a conversation is on-going. This parameter is measured using a negative number and as such, a lower numerical value is considered better (e.g. -10 > -20)
4. Average Signal Quality—the quality of voice transmission while a subscriber is using his mobile phone. The closer to “0”, the fewer errors in transmission.
5. Call Set-Up Time—time required for the network to activate the called party

Based on the results, 26 out of every 1000 calls made with a Globe phone are unable to connect to the network (blocked call), more than double compared to calls made on Smart. Fifteen out of every 1000 successful calls made with a Globe phone were involuntarily terminated (dropped call), this was nearly double compared to calls made on Smart. Smart also outperformed Globe in the terms of Average Receive Signal Level, Average Signal Quality, and Call Set-up time. 

The results must be disappointing for Globe, since the company just completed the update of their network

As of end 2012, Smart had 54.1 million subscribers while Globe has 33.1 million. Smart's sister company, Sun Cellular has over 16 million subscribers.