PLDT expands 4G coverage

Philipine Long Distance Telephone Co. said it was expanding its 4G high-speed Internet capabilities to cover “nearly all” cities and municipalities in the country in the coming months, a statement over the weekend showed. PLDT, the country’s biggest telecommunications provider, said the plan involves the deployment of 5,000 new fourth-generation base stations, aimed at increasing its fixed wireless and mobile broadband network.

“This aggressive expansion of our Long Term Evolution (LTE) network is part of our thrust to provide broadband connectivity to the whole country,” PLDT president and CEO Napoleon Nazareno said in the statement.

“It complements our efforts to provide connectivity to all Filipino homes through fixed line services like our fiber-to-the-home and the next generation network services,” he added. PLDT’s wireless subsidiary Smart Communications launched its mobile LTE service in 2012.

In April this year, PLDT deployed the fixed wireless version of LTE, the first in the country, to provide high-speed wireless broadband services to homes via its service PLDT HOME Bro Ultera that provides speed of up to 10 Mbps. Nearly 2,000 LTE base stations have so far been deployed.

Originally offered in Metro Manila, PLDT HOME Bro Ultera has since been brought to provincial areas from as far as Cagayan province in Northern Luzon and Davao del Sur in Mindanao.