Cignal has partnered with SMART Communications as its provider for satellite broadband services across the country.
With the partnership, SMART will utilize Cignal’s VSAT technology as a broadband backhaul in areas that are difficult to reach through land-based networks. By doing so, SMART Communications expands availability of broadband services for its subscribers in areas that have low to no data coverage.
The VSAT, or Very Small Aperture Terminal, is a small-sized earth station used in the transmit/receive of data, voice, and video signals over a satellite communication network, excluding broadcast television. This proves to be very valuable as SMART is now better able to respond to our people’s clamor for reliable, all-weather internet connectivity using Cignal’s VSAT service facilities in far-flung rural areas and islands.
The same technology was used in the Bicol Region after Typhoon Rolly’s onslaught last November by powering 10 cellular sites with VSAT in Catanduanes to restore connectivity in the island. To date, Cignal and Smart’s VSAT service is active in select cell sites across the country, going as far as Batanes, Calanasan and Kabugao in Apayao up north, to Kalayaan and San Vicente in Palawan, and down to the coastal areas municipalities in Tawi-Tawi and Basilan in Mindanao.
