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State-of-the-art a erial survey redefines building process Volume III, No. 075
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Editor : Cheng Ordoñez
Tuesday
See story Page 12 August 19, on 2014
By Cheng Ordonez , Associate Editor
AGAYAN de Oro City - Barring extreme abnormalities of today’s prevailing “new normal” weather condition, construction czars could have placed structures in safer places and evaded disaster-prone areas had they possessed the technology in the past and even before bridges, road networks and the metropolis had risen up to where they are now -- threatened by landslides and flashfloods, submerging them in deep waters and affecting hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of pesos in properties.
But nothing is too late Department of Public works when it comes to resiliency and Highways-10, commisand, much more, mitigation. sioned the team from the Thanks to the Depart- University of the Philipment of Science and Tech- pines’ DREAM program nology and the University to conduct aerial survey of of the PhilNorthern ippines special report Mindanfor bringao from ing up the May 1 9 state-of-the-art Light Detec- to July 10, 2014. tion and Ranging (LiDAR), Dir. Barroso’s office through the Disaster Risk shouldered the expenses of and Exposure Assessment the survey team, including for Mitigation (DREAM) fuel of the service vehicles, program. food and accommodation Soon, expect an evolu- of the team, “making sure tion of structures that are that tax-payers money will disaster-resilient with miti- go to the right projects,“ gating plans, and major proj- Sandra Flores, designated ects, involving movements information officer, quoting of bridges and highways to Dir. Barroso, said. safer grounds, which are Director Barroso assures about to unfold in Northern that with the result of LiMindanao. DAR survey in their hands, The plan includes re- identification of safe areas directing or opening up of for infrastructure, especially new road networks through construction of roads and the aid of LiDAR airborne bridges, will subsequently technology, which, practi- be treated with resiliency cally, redefined the map and mitigation. of the region for future Director Barroso reconstruction. quested for the aerial mapEngr. Evelyn Barroso, ping to also pinpoint areas regional director of the See aerial, page B7
Processed LiDAR data, from left: Orthophoto, Flood Hazzard Map and Digital Surface Model. (Courtesy of UP-DREAM/DPWH-10)
Smart fires up LTE-Advanced Philippines goes ‘5G’
Two years after it pioneered the deployment of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) or 4G technology in the country, wireless services leader Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) announced that 5G wireless technology LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), is now running in the Philippines’ largest and strongest network. Smart switched on LTEA at the Smart Jump Center in Mandaluyong City recently, setting the next phase of mobile communication technology beyond 4G LTE standards. LTE-A, referred to as ‘5G’ by reports on leading global mobile operators AT&T and T-Mobile, delivers data from between 100 megabits per second (mbps) to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), or ten times faster than 3G services and more than twice as fast as 4G services. By firing up LTE-A technology on its network, Smart joins only a handful of carriers around the world with an LTE-A network,
Co-founder and Chief Wireless Advisor of Smart Orlando B. Vea (first from left) during tests of 5G LTE-A in Smart, last year, where speeds reaching 209.66 mbps were recorded.
along with leading mobile operators in South Korea, United States, Singapore, Australia, and Hong Kong. “Even as our 3G and 4G networks continue to be unrivaled, Smart becomes the first operator to leap into the future and put the Philippines at par with the world’s most ad-
vanced countries in terms of mobile communications technology,” said Orlando B. Vea, founder and Chief Wireless Advisor of Smart. With LTE-A, a 10MB file takes less than a second to download, YouTube videos no longer have to buffer, and video calls are almost lag-free. But beyond speed,
LTE-A’s main feature is also its capability to allocate more network resources to users when the need arises. Smart started testing LTE-A across the country in August last year, delivering results of more than 100Mbps in Makati City, in Boracay, and in Davao City during the See smart, page B2
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