PLDT, Inc.’s wireless arm Smart Communications, Inc. has partnered with telecommunications company Telus to launch fifth-generation (5G) roaming services in Canada, a company official said.
“Sustaining our commitment to improve customer experience, we continue to team up with global telco leaders in key market,” Smart Vice-President for Roaming and Consumer Business Alice R. Ramos said in a recent e-mailed statement.
Aside from Telus, the company has partnerships with AT&T in the United States; TrueMove and AIS in Thailand; Sunrise in Switzerland; TDC in Denmark; Meteor in Ireland; SmarTone and HKT in Hong Kong; Pelephone in Israel; Turkcell in Turkey; Zain, Ooredoo and STC in Kuwait; StarHub in Singapore; NTT Docomo in Japan; Vodafone in Australia; Zain in Bahrain; Zain and Mobily in Saudi Arabia; Vodaphone in Qatar; China Mobile and China Unicom in China; Viettel in Vietnam; Etisalat and du in the United Arab Emirates; Chungwa, FarEasTone and T-Star in Taiwan; and KT Corp in South Korea.
To recall, technology services company PLDT Global Corp. recently partnered with Canada’s Hasty Market to offer Smart Communication’s electronic load products.
“As of 2016, Ontario, Canada is home to over 53,000 Filipinos,” PLDT Global noted.
In the Philippines, Smart has fired up more than 3,000 5G sites across the country as of May.
The company targets to further ramp up its nationwide 5G coverage in the next three years.
On June 19, Smart announced that it had fired up 5G sites across the Palawan province, particularly in Puerto Princesa, El Nido, Coron, San Vicente, Roxas, Narra, Aborlan, Brooke’s Point, Bataraza, Taytay, Sofronio Espanola, Cuyo, Rizal, and Quezon.
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