PLDT bets big on home broadband expansion – MVP

Industry giant PLDT Inc. is embarking on a massive expansion of home broadband services, betting on increasing demand in the next few years.

The company’s home broadband segment covers both wireless and fixed-line services and now serves nearly half or 46 percent of the cities and municipalities across the Philippines.

PLDT chair and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan pointed to fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) as a fast emerging space.

“We believe that in about a year or two, the ability of delivering fixed wireless services to the homes will increase significantly,” Pangilinan said.

“PLDT is focusing on fiber-to-the-home, which is considered future proof. We think FTTH will remain the best platform to deliver services like entertainment, video, sports and the like,” he added.

The company said fiber ports available for new custo­mers had surpassed 3.81 million as of the end of September this year. This is expected to reach 4.15 million by the end of 2020.

“With this broadband network, PLDT is not only increasing the number of new FTTH connections, we have also launched a program to convert all our customers still using copper-based ADSL services, to fiber-powered services over the next 18 months,” PLDT chief revenue officer and Smart president Alfredo S. Panlilio said in the same statement.

In areas where its fiber service is not yet available, PLDT is able to deploy its wireless home Wi-Fi service powered by mobile subsidiary Smart’s 4G/LTE network.

The company saw a leap in its wireless service quality following significant investments in this area.

Based on crowdsourced data from OpenSignal, Smart’s mobile network has become a leader in video experience, 4G availability, download speed, and latency experience in the third quarter of 2020, a separate statement showed.