PLDT expects record capex as 5G rolls out

MANILA, Philippines — Telecommunications and digital services provider PLDT Inc. is poised for a record spending budget for a third consecutive year, with 5G to start taking a substantial portion of the company’s allocation for next year.

PLDT chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said the company is looking to earmark a higher capital spending (capex) amount for 2020 than its budget this year.

“Yes, it is. It is looking that way,” Pangilinan said when asked if PLDT is allocating a bigger capex budget next year.

He said the amount would be finalized and approved by PLDT’s board this week.

Since 2017, PLDT has appropriated record high levels of capex. The company has allocated a record P78.4-billion for its capex this year, a significant jump from its P58 billion budget in 2017.

Pangilinan said next year’s capex would be used to continue making PLDT’s network more robust and its infrastructure world class.

“There will be more stations to be built on the wireless side. For the fixed, mainly the investments will be on the transport of PLDT, the backbone, and completion of the fibering of the cell sites to the core system so it’s really a big investment for us,” Pangilinan said.

“Our transport system is being modernized. They digitalized (it) totally, so it’s going to be more robust transport system. There are still some more investments that are going to be made on 4G and of course we are starting on 5G, there’s the IT part of it,” he said.

Pangilinan said 5G is expected to account for a substantial portion of the group’s capex next year.

“It won’t be a big, big part of the capex for next year since we are just starting. It will be a substantial amount, not very substantial, but it is,” he said.

PLDT is eyeing to commercially launch its 5G services early next year. It was earlier targeted for launch this year, but was deferred to have a clearer view of the use cases for the new technology.

“Use cases will be focused on consumers, basically individuals. Use cases on videos, e-games, all those things that require heavy data usage. Enterprises as well, particularly office. So we have to supply the customer premises improvement for business,” Pangilinan said.

5G is a wireless technology expected to provide high speeds with low latency, as well as open opportunities for use in healthcare and smart cities.

PLDT has been testing 5G “on a proof of concept basis” with technology providers such as China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE, Finland’s Nokia, Cisco Systems of the US, and Sweden’s Ericsson.