GLOBE TELECOM, Inc. on Wednesday said it anticipates 50% of its mobile data traffic to come from its long-term evolution (LTE) network by end-2017.
The telecommunications giant said in a statement that mobile data traffic in the first half of the year rose by 85% to 280 petabytes (PB) from 151 PB during the same period in 2016. Globe saw a steady increase in smartphone penetration, now estimated at around 67% of total mobile subscribers.
Joel R. Agustin, Globe senior vice-president for program governance, network technical governance, noted that currently, around 43% of Globe’s data traffic comes from its LTE network.
This data traffic growth is expected to continue to grow, as Mr. Agustin said Globe targets to add 600 LTE sites by the end of the year. To date, the company has nearly 5,000 LTE sites, which utilize the 700 megahertz (MHz), 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz frequencies.
This year, Globe ramped up its installation of additional LTE cell sites in line with efforts to improve mobile Internet speed throughout the country.
Globe began deployment of LTE sites using the 700 MHz band in June 2016, after the company and PLDT, Inc. teamed up to buy the telecommunications assets of San Miguel Corp. for P69.1 billion.
Majority of Globe’s LTE sites are located in Metro Manila and other highly populated areas, where a big portion of customers use LTE-based handsets.
“Over the years, Globe has been continuously upgrading its network infrastructure and capacities to make us future-ready in anticipation of our customers’ bandwidth requirement. As our LTE network is steadily becoming more and more pervasive, more and more people transacting in LTE will have improve mobile data experience compared to 3G,” Mr. Agustin said.
Since January, Globe has already migrated about 900,000 of customers with LTE devices but using 3G SIM cards.
Globe recently announced that it is hiking its capital expenditure (capex) this year by $100 million for the continued expansion of its mobile data network in the fourth quarter. It originally pegged capex at $750 million.
Shares in Globe ended higher by P14 or 0.68% at P2,064. — Patrizia Paola C. Marcelo
