PLDT completes P2.5-B expansion project

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT)  has completed a P2.5-billion expansion of its fiber assets, which will support the rollout of high-speed Internet services for its fixed and mobile networks, a statement issued Friday showed.

PLDT, the country’s biggest telecommunications firm, installed more than 5,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables in the first half of the year. This brought the company’s total fiber assets to more than 71,000 km, the statement showed.

“This fortifies our already formidable network advantage as we cover more areas, increase data speeds and provide enhanced redundancies for improved resiliency,” PLDT president Napoleon Nazareno said in the statement. “We have built early and we continue to expand as the demand for broadband heavy applications continues to surge. This is what we call future-proofing our network.”

PLDT said the added network would accelerate the deployment of so-called  fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service and the fourth-generation mobile data service called Long Term Evolution (LTE) of its wireless subsidiary Smart Communications.

PLDT Technology Group Head Rolando Peña said that PLDT’s FTTH service has already reached two million homes passed as of end-June with the expansion program. “Even as we hit our programmed expansion for the year in just six months, we continue to lay down fiber optic cables nationwide to accelerate our FTTH rollout and hit 2.2 million homes passed by the end of the year,” Peña said in the same statement.

PLDT has covered more than 600 high-end residential subdivisions across the country. PLDT Fibr provides subscribers with connection speed of up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) that allows seamless streaming of high-definition movies. Miguel R. Camus