GLOBE Telecom Inc. last week announced its 5G wireless technology adoption in the Philippines that will be made commercially available by the middle of next year via its home broadband services.
Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu said at the launch that the company, together with its existing vendor partners including Huawei Technologies, has been preparing “for sometime now” for the rollout of the fifth-generation network that promises higher speed, lower latency and better capacity.
“We have been deploying 4.5G Massive Mimo [MM] antennas since 2016 because we want to increase our capacity network and make it future-proof,” he said. MM is the fundamental radio access technology for 5G, and Globe has one of the largest deployments of it in Asia as part of the company’s strategic technology road map, according to a media release.
Globe already has more than 200 sites using MM that are starting to deliver, according to Lim Chee Siong, Huawei Southern Pacific Region chief strategy and marketing officer.
“The Philippines and Globe are 5G-ready,” Siong said, adding that the country’s spectrum band is all lined up as well, being one of the largest across the whole Asia-Pacific region.
Earlier at the launch, Gil Genio, Globe chief technology and information officer, underscored Globe’s investment on its network infrastructure by spending 31 percent of its annual total revenues to upgrade and expand its telecommunication and information-technology infrastructure.
“We are spending about a third of our gross revenue on capital spending, which is way higher than what most telcos around the world are spending,” he said. “I think it’s evident that we take our job as a service provider seriously.”
According to the release, Globe increased its capital spend from P21.1 billion in 2012 to P36.7 billion in 2016 and P42.5 billion in 2017, to provide subscribers with better broadband services. Gil said that the company will further accelerate its capital spend to north of P43.5 billion this year.
“What Globe wants to do is to redefine what we have defined as high speed,” Cu said.
Globe’s first 5G service will be deployed for its home broadband service, called Globe At Home, that will use so-called Air Fiber. Cu said that the technology makes use of fixed location wireless radios instead of fiber, and could provide speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps. The technology, according to the release, will also enable Globe to go over the circuitous approval process of deploying a fiber optic cable, which involves multiple permits from local government units.
“The right of process can sometimes take years to obtain delaying fiber optic roll-out completion,” Cu said. “We can bring Internet to more homes by deploying 5G compared to a typical fiber optic rollout.
“Together,” the Globe executive added, “we continue to do one thing: To create the future of Filipino digital lifestyle.”