A key official of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said on Tuesday that the country’s two largest telecommunications firms marginally improved their networks.

According to NTC director Edgardo Cabarios, Globe Telecom and Smart Communication Inc. passed the standard for Grade of Service in the month of September Quality of Service benchmarking made by NTC.

In a test that measures network performance based on NTC’s minimum service performance standard, for the month of September, Smart Communications and Globe Telecom passed the standard Grade of Service, which is at 4 percent, the NTC said.

Smart Communications got 2.54 percent from 9.95 in second quarter, while Globe Telecom had 2.75 percent from 4.45 percent in second quarter. Smart’s performance is better than Globein this area, the NTC said.

On dropped call rates (DCR), the NTC said that both companies were within the 2 percent minimum standard. Smart registered a 2.15-percent call rate, while Globe got 2.75 percent.

Although both telcos failed the industry standard for DCR, Smart Communications’ performance has an edge over Globe Telecom in this area.

The NTC said that one of the factor why the country’s two largest telecommunications firms have a failing grade in terms of dropped calls is due to bad weather.