PLDT to invest P2.5 B for fiber optic cable

MANILA, Philippines - Dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) is investing P2.5 billion this year to extend its fiber optic cable facilities by rolling out another 5,000 kilometers.

PLDT president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno said in a statement that the expansion would extend the total reach of the company’s fiber network to almost 60,000 kilometers.

“With this expansion program, we are bolstering our already formidable fiber advantage. Fiber is key to having the capacity to deliver next-generation, large-bandwidth data services,” Nazareno stressed.

He added that the fiber expansion program for 2013 would cover the domestic fiber optic network (DFON)used for long haul applications, fiber-to-the home (FTTH), fiber-in the-loop (FITL) and other inter-office fibering projects.

The FTTH project, for example, would make PLDT’s high-speed internet services available to about two million homes in different parts of the country such as Metro Manila, the regions of Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, and, the provinces of Panay, Negros Occidental, Cebu, and Davao.

“For our customers, this means that in more places in the country they will be able to enjoy superior high-speed Internet service using their PCs, laptops, tablets or smartphones – whether at home, office or on the go.  Your devices can be only as good as your network,” he said.

Moreover, the additional fiber optic cable links include submarine cables that would boost the data connectivity of the islands of Palawan, Bohol and Panay where the demand for resilient data services is rising due to the booming tourism and business process outsourcing industries in these areas.

“Our DFON expansion program will directly support the economic development programs of these major islands,” Nazareno said.

PLDT is spending about P29 billion for its capital expenditures this year or 20 percent lower than the P36.4 billion in 2012.

PLDT’s wireless subsidiary Smart Communications Inc. would expand the coverage of its Long Term Evolution (LTE) fourth-generation mobile data network which at this point already has about 1,000 cell sites, or 10 times the coverage of the competition.

This would also provide the connectivity to raise Smart’s 3G coverage from about 70 percent to about 85 percent to 90 percent of the total network.

Nazareno said this year’s program involves the installation and firing up of more Smart LTE cell sites and the expansion of the 3G coverage of Smart and Sun Cellular while PLDT is also building content delivery platforms to handle internet protocol-based multi-media content.

“Even as we maximize our legacy businesses, we are focused on building our data and multi-media services.  These are the businesses of the future,” Nazareno said.

He pointed to the growing popularity of web-enabled smart phones and rising demand for media-rich data services on both fixed and mobile devices.

Aside from strengthening its domestic data network, PLDT continues to beef up its international data facilities as well with the completion of the Hong Kong FOC extension project as part of the 7,800-km undersea Asia Submarine-cable Express system that links the Philippines to Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong through PLDT’s new landing station in Daet, Camarines Norte.