MANILA, Philippines —PLDT Inc. is gearing up to fully launch this year its fastest fiber internet subscription yet—priced as much as P49,999 per month—for its high-end customers looking to upgrade internet connectivity in the advent of increasing data demand.
On Monday evening, the Pangilinan-led company introduced Gigabit Fiber plans that range from 1 gigabit to 10 gigabits for P7,499 to P49,999 per month.
The 10-gigabit plan is about 29 times more expensive than the 200-Mbps (megabits per second) plan—the cheapest fiber offering—priced at P1,699 per month.
The gigabit plans also include subscriptions to TV streaming platforms and internet security package with cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, among others.
Jeremiah de la Cruz, PLDT senior vice president and head of consumer business, said they have been receiving inquiries for the high-end product offering.
Upper economic class market
These customers—who are usually in the upper economic class—are interested in the fiber plan because they want the fastest internet speed possible, the PLDT official explained.
De la Cruz said the fiber product is useful for households where multiple devices are connected to the internet at a time.
The high-capacity internet product is seen to accommodate a smart home setup where internet-enabled appliances and devices are linked via a network and can be remote-controlled.
“You can see the changing needs in everyone’s households. The number of applications that you need will actually start to increase,” de la Cruz said.
READ: PLDT weighs prepaid fiber market entry
As this develops, de la Cruz said they were also studying the prepaid fiber market to offer cheaper connectivity to users—a move that was already made by its competitors Globe Telecom Inc. and Converge ICT Solutions.
To support its internet services, PLDT has been ramping up its subsea fiber cable projects.
The telco giant activated in 2022 the US-Transpacific Jupiter cable system, a 14,000-kilometer (km) submarine cable network linking Daet, Camarines Norte and Japan.
It also set to complete by next year the 12,000-km Apricot cable system. It provides connections to Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan and Guam.