Telcos ramping up home broadband services

MANILA, Philippines — Telco giants PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. have stepped up their home broadband services to bring better connectivity to more users who need to work and study at home under the “new normal.”

PLDT said the rollout of its home broadband services has reached 46 percent of the total cities and municipalities nationwide as of end-September.

PLDT’s capacity also continued to expand in the nine-month period, with the total number of fiber ports available for the use of new customers increasing to 3.81 million.

The company plans to raise the number of its fiber ports to 4.15 million by yearend.

“We believe that in about a year or two, the ability of delivering fixed wireless services to the homes will increase significantly. PLDT is focusing on fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) which is considered future proof. We think FTTH will still remain the best platform to deliver services like entertainment, video, sports, and the like,” PLDT chairman, president and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said.

In areas where its fiber service is not yet available, PLDT said it continues to deploy its wireless home WiFi service powered by its mobile subsidiary Smart’s 4G/LTE network.

“PLDT is ramping up its capabilities to be able to serve more Filipinos nationwide by rolling out more fiber and more ports in different parts of the Philippines than it has ever done before because we want to connect as many Filipino families as we possibly can to our fiber network, which is the most extensive fiber infrastructure in the country,” PLDT chief revenue officer and Smart president Alfredo Panlilio said.

Meanwhile, Globe has also been ramping up its investments in FTTH in order to bring high-speed broadband services to more homes across the country.

Globe said its FTTH capital expenditure in the first half was already 755 percent higher than the same period last year, while the allocation for the second half is 64 percent higher than 2019.