Smile Communication launches 4G/LTE "Fastest Internet" in Lagos

Smile Communications Nigeria on Monday 24th February, 2014 rolled out their service to Lagos consumers after a successful roll out in Ibadan (Western Nigeria). Smile has initially tested its service in some strategic locations in Lagos before making their service available to members of the public.

Smile is incorporated in Mauritius but has subsidiaries in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), NIgeria, Tanzania, Uganda and an associated company in South Africa. They currently have commercial operations in Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria and soon in DRC. They claim to be the first ti introduce the first 4G/LTE service to Africa.

I first heard about Smile from a friend who’s a telco consultant. He mentioned to me that the company was started by some ex MTN staff. They introduced their service in Uganda (4G LTE) before coming to Nigeria.

Smile Communications has been in operation in Ibadan, Western Nigeria, for some time.  I wondered why they started in Ibadan before recently coming to Lagos. My instinct tells me that they wanted to test the Nigerian market from a region of less competition. Ibadan gave them a view of how the Nigerian market may turn out and now they’ve rolled out their service in Lagos.

They’ve come to join the other service providers that are already providing their service in Lagos. We have had times when a new provider will come onto the scene with promises of delivering super fast and superior internet connection without fulfilling it; and those that fulfil it end up not having capacity enough when the demands grows.

I decided to take the Smile 4G LTE network for a spin and personally purchased a MiFI router from Smile.

I have a MiFi universal router, a universal USB Internet modem and a WiMAX modem from another service provider. You are not wondering why I have them this much, are you? It is simply because Internet service in Lagos is as epileptic as power supply. Some have even named it plug and pray.

This is day 2 with the smile MiFi router and I’ve used it in many situations and the performance has been impressive so far. When I’m in the office, my mobile internet from Airtel works just fine. But when I get to my room where I spend the bulk of my time when I am at home, I can’t access 3G, I get EDGE. But Smile’s Service gives me steady 3 network bars. That’s 3/5. With the 3 network bars, I make Skype calls, FaceTime, streamed videos on YouTube without buffering and connected three of my devices–iPhone, iPad and MacBook.

The quality of service you get from any provider is dependent on the availability of their service in your location. I took a calculated risk by buying the router. I was told they have service coverage in my area. But I live way inside my estate and most networks are poor there. My risk paid off, cos I get quality enough service even in my room.

I have a concern, this isn’t the first time an internet service provider is coming into Lagos with excellent service. At first, as it is customary, the service will be excellent. As soon as more customers come on board, the network quality start to drop. Smile has assured us that network quality won’t drop. I won’t take their word for it until after a year of observing them let’s come back here in 12 months and review their service.

But I must confess, this is the first time in my internet life that I’m using an internet connection that’ll give me 19 Mbps speed.

I’d love Smile to keep it up so that I can keep smiling each time I pay for my subscription and log on to the internet.

To have an idea what it will cost to subscribe and obtain the different data packages they offer, take a look at this table:

Smile Communication Data Bundles