CLARK, Pampanga—Claiming to be the “first in the Philippines and one of the first in the region,” PLDT Inc. is firing up its first 5G base station here to cater to the growing demand for connectivity in the enterprise sector.
Slated for sometime this month, the first 5G cell site will be one of the 13 existing towers to be upgraded to be 5G-ready. Another 12 are set to be constructed and deployed at the premier investment city in Central Luzon.
The telco partnered with the Bases Conversion and Development Authority to make Clark its first “5G City.”
This initiative, which is part of the P58-billion capital expenditures of the company for 2018, will be completed in the next six months.
“We are the first to deploy this technology in the country. The 5G tech ushers in a new era of intelligence services to power smart cities of tomorrow,” said Juan Victor I. Hernandez, the chief of PLDT Enterprise.
Joachim Horn, who advises the telco on tech and innovations, said the company will be deploying the tech for all use cases, but noted initial implementation will be for enterprises.
“They may actually become the first users,” he said, explaining that 5G, aside from providing faster connections with higher bandwidths, can be used to automate different processes for different companies.
Horn explained his group aims to target different sectors as its first customers, listing them as transport, health care, manufacturing, energy, hotels, residential and other partner locators, thus making Clark a viable choice for its 5G City initiative.
“Toward the mid- and long-term, end users will come in,” Horn said.
Mobile devices today are still not certified for 5G use, given that the International Telecommunications Union has yet to release the full specifications—including spectrum—of the new technology.
The Filipino telco partnered with Ericsson to develop 5G tech in the Philippines.
“Through this pilot deployment, we will be able to test 5G’s capabilities using a live network and develop solutions that will serve the future needs of industries and government, such as autonomous vehicles, connected fleets, and smart buildings and factories,” PLDT Chief Revenue Officer Ernesto R. Alberto said.
Hernandez added that, in making Clark the first 5G City in the Philippines, the government can expect to see more and more locators coming in, as reliable Internet connectivity is now the name of the game in the digital arena.
“We are making this zone even more attractive to foreign investors,” he said.
Alberto noted that, after Clark, PLDT will be targeting densely populated cities for the next wave of its 5G deployment.
Smart has been testing 5G since 2016, when it achieved speeds of 2.5 Gigabits per second using 100 MHz with latency of just 1 millisecond over a “live” network—the first in the Philippines.
In June Smart launched its 5G Technolab, the company’s flagship facility for the research and development, standardization and testing of 5G, which is designed to be a sustainable environment for innovative services.
Earlier, competitor Globe Telecom Inc. announced it is going to offer 5G services to customers starting the second quarter of 2019. It intends to deploy the said tech through its fixed wireless network, promising to provide speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps.
Mobile use of 5G has yet to be developed. When this happens, the Department of Information and Communications Technology plans to auction off the spectrum for 5G to telecom operators.
Image credits: Lorenz S. Marasigan