Fiber to home

You live in a remote area or a small island.  It will be close to impossible to get fiber to a small island due to high costs. Unless, of course, it’s a hotspot for a lot of travelers like Boracay where the most preferred last mile would still be wireless as it is faster and cheaper to deploy.

Population density or demand is low. Whether on an island or in the mainland, if your locality (or municipality) has a low population density, the chances of getting access to a fiber connection are slim. Likewise, even if your area has a relatively high population but there’s very low demand, there will be no business interest in there. Just like we said earlier, the preferred last mile solution for third to sixth class municipalities would either be the old legacy wires or fixed wireless.

Exclusive village or subdivision contracts. Some subdivisions or villages have exclusive contracts or agreements with certain ISP providers. This prohibits newer players to come in to do the ground work to install new fiber lines. It would be nice if the ISP that enjoys exclusive rights decides to upgrade to fiber but until then, you’re stuck with old legacy lines if they don’t.

Fiber to the curb. Usually an installation is done just outside of villages or subdivisions so laying out from there to a home inside the village may still require an extra investment from the subscriber. A friend from Kapitolyo, Pasig wanted to get fiber from the curb directly to their home inside the village which is around 250 meters away from the installation so they had to shoulder around P25,000 for the entire length of the line. That initial investment is a bit steep just to get a fiber installation, assuming you can actually afford it, but that’s how things work these days, even with utilities such as cable, electricity and water. You have to pay for the extra line to your house.

Condo property management will not upgrade. Most old condominiums would already have the infrastructure, more likely old legacy technology. These don’t get replaced easily with new fiber lines because of the cost implications to the property management. A telco manager recently told us it is easier for them to roll out fiber horizontally and it’s more challenging vertically because condo management is harder to deal with especially with internal regulations and cost implications.

Fiber cables have become much cheaper now so the rollout to the home becomes more reasonable. To make it more cost-effective to existing players, the middle-mile needs support from the government. This can be done by laying out the conduits every time there are new roads created so that ISPs can either lease out the connections or co-own by sharing the additional expenses during road construction.

It may take many more years, even decades, until we can see each and every household or condo unit gain access to fast fiber connection. At least we’re getting there.