Smart Corp. of the Philippines has begun full-scale introduction of PHS-WLL. The background and outline of this project is outlined below:

The Smart Corporation, founded only in 1991, offers a wide range of telecommunications services including cellular phones, basic fixed telephone, and international communications. It has grown rapidly in the burgeoning economy of the Philippines. Especially in its cellular phone service, which was started only in 1994, Smart caught up with the two foregoing companies and won the largest market share in the country, enjoying 404,000 subscribers as of April 1997.
The telecommunications business in the Philippines has always been promoted by the private sector. The Philippine government assigned a telephone company to provide an exclusive telephone service franchise for each of the large cities. The telephone companies enjoyed generous patronage from the government. As a result, they placed more emphasis on pursuing revenues and many of the telephones installed were concentrated in profitable large cities such as Metro Manila.
President Ramos who took office in 1992 decided to introduce competition into the market to turn around the Philippine telecommunications industry that had been lagging behind. President Ramos issued Executive Order No. 109 by which he assigned the individual areas to the licensed businesses of cellular phones and international communications and imposed upon them an obligation of installing a certain number of basic telephones by April 1998. Smart was assigned the southern part of Metro Manila and the two districts in the northern part of Luzon Island. Smart was obliged to establish 700,000 lines depending on demand in the area.

2. Smart’s Strategy

Since Smart was a newcomer as a telecommunications operator, outside plants such as conduits and telephone poles were quite limited, compared to the incumbents. Many regulations were made on the right-of-way and the use of lands which hitherto had never been taken up as issues. Also, land acquisition costs increased, creating difficulty in obtaining land. All of this forced Smart to compete with the incumbents on cost and should complete the obligatory lines within the instructed period.

Smart’s strategy was to introduce the Wireless Local Loop (WLL) along with the conventional metallic cable system to provide basic telephone services. The WLL uses a radio technology for the subscriber’s loop. Several wireless base stations are established within the service area, and when demand arises, an antenna and a radio device are installed at the subscriber’s premises. As the conventional system requires installation of metallic telephone cables right to the individual homes, the telephone companies have to put up outside plants based on their long-term demand forecast. However, in the case of the WLL, no matter where a demand arises within the service area, it can be flexibly met. Moreover, there is no need to put up outside plants such as poles or cables, so customer demand can be more swiftly met, allowing more efficient telephone service than in the metallic cable system. Also, Smart has cost advantage by using their towers of existing cellular phone stations instead of installing new towers for WLL.
Thus, the WLL offers many benefits. Furthermore the WLL construction period is far shorter than its metallic cable counterpart. To give an example, the WLL in the southern part of Metro Manila took only three months for the telephone service to open, including facilities construction. As mentioned before, Smart had to lay down a specific number of telephone lines by April, 1998. They estimated meeting this requirement with PHS-WLL systems.

3. WLL Applications

Smart provided approximately 15,000 lines via PHS-WLL in June 1997. They installed two different types to satisfy different needs of the individual service areas.
\ Urban-type PHS-WLL system (installed in the south-central part of Metro Manila).
The existing metallic cables are used between the WLL Access Controller (WAC) and the WLL Cell Station (WCS).
Power can be fed to the WCS via metallic cables from the WAC.
This area is closely packed with commercial and residential districts, densely populated, and also has high-rise buildings (see Photo 1). Also, Smart has already a considerable number of subscriber cables in this area. By installing WLL antennas at the high poles of the cellular phones’ antennas, Smart can almost complete the coverage in this area.
\Suburban/Rural-type PHS-WLL system (installed in the
suburbs to the south of Metro Manila and in the north of Luzon Island)
This type uses wireless transmission route through point-to-multipoint running from the WAC to WCS (see Fig. 2).

This area consists of suburban residential areas and small cities that have grown around churches, as well as rural areas where houses are found only on roadsides (see Photo 2). The population density is low. Smart has very few subscriber’s loops, and cellular phone stations are also sparse. The company must newly install poles and steel towers for the WLL. So this type was designed to be installed in such rural areas.
The WLL generally differs from the metallic telephone lines in the several points. For this reason, Smart has sought customers’ understanding by explaining the following.
- An antenna must be installed in the subscriber’s home.
- The WSU (WLL Subscriber Unit) to which the telephone is connected must be installed inside the house that is near the antenna to retain the necessary signal gain from the antenna, and power must be fed to it.
- Fax transmission and data transmission via modem takes longer.

Presently in the Philippines, as local calls are free (costs included in the basic charge), there is high traffic per line, so the number of accommodated subscribers per base station is limited. However, usage-sensitive pricing is expected to be introduced within 1997. As it would reduce traffic per subscriber’s line and increase the number of accommodated subscribers per base station, a cost advantage over metallic cables is expected.
Also, the WLL-related technology is advancing day by day. Fax and faster data transmission via modem are now in field-trials. It is planned that the company will carry out full-scale introduction of a multimedia communications network via PHS-WLL systems.
Smart and NTT, which has a stake in Smart, are jointly evaluating these PHS-WLL system to reflect the results in their systems as well as in other fields.