Firms offer high-speed Internet services

Traditional telecom companies in Asia are finally taking notice of new competitors which threaten to eat up their businesses by offering high-speed Internet and data services.

The new companies normally do not offer basic telephone access but broad band capabilities to support the huge demand for information, particularly from the Internet.

Broadband, which is currently an industry by-word, is a transmission medium capable of supporting a wide range of audio and video frequencies for multi-media applications.

The Yankee Group, a US-based research organization, said that with the stiff competition, incumbent carriers are now ramping up their broadband access rollout plans, despite concerns over the effect on their usual service revenue streams and their hefty legacy network investments.

In the country alone, Internet service providers (ISPs), trunked radio operators and so-called dot.com companies are all talking of broadband.

As a result of its growing popularity, dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has already announced moves to focus on data services and has, in fact, acquired Home Cable for its broadband infrastructure.

A similar move is being undertaken by the Lopez-owned Benpres Holdings through Bayan Telecommunications Inc. (BayanTel) and SkyVision which operates Sky Cable.

Ayala Corp., on the other hand, is planning to utilize another broadband technology -- asymmetric digital subscriber loop (ADSL) since it does not have a cable television network yet.

ADSL is a form of digital subscriber line in which the bandwidth or speed available for downstream connection or downloading information from the Internet is significantly larger then for upstream.

It is well suited for web browsing as well as for some emerging applications such as video on demand.

With the big telecom firms changing their business strategies, the Yankee Group's Asia-Pacific division forecasts that broadband subscribers in the region will increase from about 452,900 at year-end 1999 to approximately 11.3 million in 2003.

Among various broadband access technologies, cable modem and ADSL are expected to serve as primary network technologies, accounting for 46 percent and 42 percent of broadband subscribers in Asia by year-end 2003, respectively.

On the other hand, Local Multipoint Distribution Service (LMDS) and satellite will eventually become niche services to connect users, particularly those in rural areas who do not have access to basic communications infrastructure.

Currently, the region's major incumbent operators are facing an onslaught of competition from new contenders which are building broadband networks directly to customers and providing them with innovative services in major metropolitan areas. --