DIGITAL services provider PLDT Inc. has set a firm target of reaching 4.4 million homes by end-2017, as it expands its fiber-powered fixed-line network by about 80 percent throughout the year.
PLDT Chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said this initiative will make available ultra-fast Internet connection accessible to Filipino families in more areas of the country.
“We are stepping up our efforts to deliver unrivaled Internet services to more homes in various parts of the country, from the Ilocos provinces in the North to Zamboanga in the South,” he said on Tuesday.
Late last year PLDT’s fiber networtk covered 2.5 million homes nationwide, after an aggressive rollout of fiber facilities. This year’s expansion plan will add 1.9 million homes to the market that can be served.
The fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service can deliver Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), which allows browsing of multiple web sites, uploading of hundreds of photos and downloading of a full-length movie in just seconds.
Delivered through PLDT Home Fibr, it, likewise, features the country’s first symmetrical speed service, which provides equal upload and download speeds, PLDT First Vice President Oscar Enrico Reyes said.
“PLDT Home Fibr also provides a more robust platform for a growing range of Smart Home services. For example, home-security services, such as FamCam, the monitoring device that makes it possible for parents to watch over their family wherever they are, as well as FamZone, which allows them to keep their children safe online,” Reyes said.
Among the areas now covered by fiber-powered Internet connections are Laoag, Baguio City, Vigan City and Tuguegarao in Northern Luzon; Tarlac, Cabanatuan City, and San Fernando, Pampanga, in Central Luzon; and Puerto Princesa and El Nido in Palawan, down to the Bicol region cities of Sorsogon, Naga and Legazpi.
Also fiber-ready are major urban areas in the Visayas region, with the most extensive footprint in the cities of Bacolod, Cebu, Iloilo, Tacloban and Tagbilaran. In Mindanao PLDT’s fiber has already reached key provinces and cities, including Cotabato, Davao, General Santos City, Koronadal and Zamboanga.
Complementing its accelerated rollout of FTTH services, PLDT is starting to deploy hybrid-fiber technologies that can deliver super-fast broadband service through regular phone lines in buildings and residences.
PLDT is utilizing the hybrid-fiber technologies of KT Corp. (formerly Korea Telecom), called GiGa Wire, and Huawei Technologies’s G fast that can provide data speeds of up to 600 Mbps to 700 Mbps per user.
Both technologies work by connecting buildings and dwellings with fiber-optic cables and using special equipment to enable the internal copper wiring of these structures to deliver fiber-like data speeds.
PLDT has invested P300 billion, or $6 billion, over the last 10 years to roll out the country’s most expansive network infrastructure. In 2016 it set aside P48 billion, or about $1 billion, for capital expenditures, a significant portion of which was allocated for the domestic fiber infrastructure.