Philippines national operator PLDT plans to increase the footprint of its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network by about 80 per cent this year, with the aim of reaching 4.4 million homes by the end of 2017.
By the end of last year, PLDT had connected 2.5 million homes. This year's expansion will add 1.9 million homes to the total. There’s still a way to go, however; there are about 23 million households in the Philippines.
“We are stepping up our efforts to deliver unrivalled internet services to more homes in various parts of the country, from the Ilocos provinces in the North to Zamboanga in the South,” said PLDT chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan.
The FTTH service will be delivered through PLDT’s HOME Fibr brand, offering internet speeds of up to one gigabit. PLDT HOME Fibr also features the country's first symmetrical service, providing equal upload and download speeds, the company claims.
“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,” said PLDT first vice president and home operations head Oscar Enrico Reyes.
Complementing its accelerated rollout of FTTH services, PLDT is starting to deploy what it refers to as “hybrid fibre technologies” that can deliver super-fast broadband service through regular phone lines inside buildings and residences. The operator has the option of two technologies: GiGa Wire from KT, which is an evolution of the ITU-T’s G.hn home networking standard offering speeds up to a gigabit; and Huawei’s G.fast technology, which can provide aggregrate data rates of up to 700Mb/s per user.
PLDT says it has invested ₱300 billion ($6 billion) in its network infrastructure over the last 10 years. In 2016, it set aside ₱48 billion (about $1 billion) for capital expenditures, a significant portion of which was allocated for the domestic fibre infrastructure.
