By ’25, Converge to get Sky Cable subscribers

By next year, all internet subscribers of Sky Cable will be migrated to Converge ICT Solutions Inc.’s more advanced fiber network—and the company that had early beginnings in Pampanga eyes to bring in more smaller operators to leverage its technology.

Converge CEO and cofounder Dennis Uy, in an interview in Pasig on Monday, said they were working to move to their network the 300,000 Sky Cable customers.

He said the migration had started already in Quezon City and would focus next on the provinces.

The listed internet service provider, which has a fiber network stretching over 700,000 kilometers across the country and reaching 16 million homes, inked a commercial agreement with Sky back in July.

The deal allows Converge to increase utilization of its over 9 million ports.

Uy said their network was only 30 percent utilized, noting they still have more room for expansion.

As such, the Converge cofounder raised the need to reach out to other telecommunications operators who can use the company’s expansive network for internet rollout.

“We want to help the small operators to have access to new technology,” he said.

As of end-September, Converge had 2.46 million residential customers, or 20 percent more than last year. Its household coverage grew to 63.94 percent from the previous year’s 62.93 percent.

So far this year, the internet service provider has spent P7.5 billion in capital expenditures for expansion plans. Converge set a capital expenditure guidance of P12 billion to P14 billion this year for subsea cable projects and other spending.

The listed company is on track to activate the South-East Asia Hainan-Hong Kong Express (SEA-H2X) fiber cable system next year. The 5,000-kilometer (km) submarine cable project, which has a design capacity of 160 terabits per second (Tbps), traverses six markets including Hong Kong, China, Thailand, East Malaysia and Singapore.

Apart from SEA-H2X, Converge is also building the 15,000-km BiFrost Cable System, which will connect the Philippines to Singapore, Indonesia, Guam and the west coast of North America. This project, the capacity of which is up to 15 Tbps, is targeted to be finished by next year.