PLDT, Inc. is ramping up the expansion of its fixed and mobile networks as part of its five-year P260-billion capital expenditure (capex) program.
In a statement, the telecommunications giant said it has earmarked over P50 billion for this year’s capex. The company’s capital spending is expected to stay at the same level in the next two years. PLDT said this is separate from the P175 billion or $3.4 billion of capex that it invested in network building in the previous five-year period (2011 to 2015).
“What this means is that for every P1 of service revenue, we reinvest between P0.30-0.35 in the business to super-charge our networks and advance our digital transformation program. This is a massive effort to turn our networks into powerful, pervasive and resilient platforms for delivering relevant digital services and solutions that our people can use to improve their daily lives, as well as enable the country to compete and thrive in this digital age,” PLDT President, Chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said in a statement.
For its fixed line business, PLDT said it aiming to double its fiber and hybrid fiber broadband capacity to over 2.2 million ports, with about 650,000 of the additional ports for fiber and another 550,000 for hybrid fiber broadband. The company said by 2019, virtually all of PLDT’s 1.2 million copper-based digital subscriber line (DSL) subscribers will enjoy fiber-fast Internet. Within the next five-year cycle of network development (2021-2025), PLDT could have as many as 10 million homes passed with fiber-to-the-home (FTTH).
For mobile, PLDT’s wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc. is targeting to double the number of long-term evolution (LTE) base stations to about 17,700 and increase the number of LTE-equipped cell sites to over 6,800. The number of 3G base stations will be over 12,400, while cell sites equipped with new 3G base stations will be over 8,000. Most of the new 4G and 3G base stations will be using frequencies acquired from San Miguel Corporation’s telecommunications unit.
PLDT said its total fiber footprint grew 45% from about 120,000 kilometers as of end-2015 to over 174,000 kilometers by end-2017. For this year, PLDT will add another 33,000 kilometers of fiber cables and raise the total to nearly 210,000 kilometers by yearend.
Total capacity of its international fiber network is expected to jump 80% to 8.92 Terabits per second (Tbps) by end-2019, of which 8.11 Tbps will terminate in the Philippines. This will be boosted by its P7-billion investment in the new Trans-Pacific undersea cable system called Jupiter, which will boost the capacity and resiliency of its direct undersea fiber links to the West Coast of the United States and Japan. Jupiter will be built by a consortium of global companies which include Amazon, Facebook, SoftBank, PCCW Global and NTT Communications.
Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Patrizia Paola C. Marcelo
