Globe Telecom has submitted its 3-year coverage plan to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
The company did not announce its investment plan to meet the 3-year coverage plan to meet one of its obligations towards the acquisition of spectrum from San Miguel.
Earlier, Globe Telecom announced capital expenditure of $750 million – mainly for boosting data capacity and expand network reach – for 2016 alone.
Using the spectrum it acquired from San Miguel, Globe Telecom said it will provide mobile services, including voice, SMS and data, to 95 percent of municipalities and cities in the Philippines by the end of 2018.
The proposed investment in telecom infrastructure in the Philippines is one of the conditions set by the NTC in approving the co-use agreement covering the spectrum resources that Globe acquired from the joint buy out of San Miguel Corp.’s telecom assets.
Globe Telecom aims to implement the rollout plan in June. The telecom network operator will be deploying about 4,500 multiband, multimode software defined radio base station equipment and capacity upgrades to improve overall customer experience in terms of speed and reliability of its mobile services.
Currently, Globe Telecom provides mobile broadband services across its entire network, having fully upgraded to 100 percent 4G network while more than 60 percent of its sites are now equipped with LTE for mobile broadband services.
Utilizing San Miguel’s spectrum, Globe Telecom has upgraded over 25 cell sites with LTE 700 MHz and more than 600 cell sites with additional 2600 MHz spectrum and about 1,500 cell sites with additional 1800 MHz spectrum as part of its commitment to improve mobile internet speeds within one year.
By yearend, the company expects that about 2,200 of the company’s existing cell sites representing over 30 percent if its network would be upgraded using the additional spectrum from the co-use agreement.
Globe Telecom said it is also aiming to provide ultra fast internet in 2 million households over 20,000 barangays by 2020. The investment in telecom infrastructure is expected to take five years and will extend network coverage to more areas.
