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Filipino operator submits three-year rollout plan to telco watchdog.
Globe Telecom on Monday said it aims to extend mobile coverage to 95% of the Philippines’ towns and cities by the end of 2018, using spectrum acquired from San Miguel Corp (SMC).
The target is part of a three-year rollout plan submitted by Globe to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) last Friday.
In the submission, Globe’s general counsel Froilan Castelo said the plan kicked off in June, and will see the company deploy approximately 4,500 base stations in addition to capacity upgrades at existing sites.
"We would like to assure the commission that we are utilising all available resources and doing all we can to improve the mobile experience of our customers. We are committed to pursue our aggressive mobile broadband coverage and capacity expansion programmes in order to meet mobile data traffic growth and increasing demand for mobile connectivity," he said.
Globe and incumbent PLDT agreed to acquire 50% each of SMC’s telco assets in late May for 52.85 billion pesos (€1.02 billion). The agreement includes valuable spectrum in the 700 MHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands.
That deal is currently being probed by the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC).
Despite the investigation, Globe said it has already upgraded 25 cell sites to support its newly-acquired 700-MHz spectrum.
"We are confident that our strategy of combining new site builds with efficient use of spectrum resources and adopting new broadband wireless technologies such as LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) will allow us to satisfy the changing needs of our mobile customers," Castelo said.
Globe is also pushing ahead with its fixed-line broadband rollout.
The company said it plans to provide fixed broadband coverage to 2 million premises across 20,000 villages by 2020.
