{"id":40445,"date":"2020-10-26T23:28:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T15:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=40445"},"modified":"2020-10-26T23:29:05","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T15:29:05","slug":"pldt-smart-ramps-up-5g-investments-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2020\/10\/26\/pldt-smart-ramps-up-5g-investments-in-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"PLDT-Smart ramps up 5G investments in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>After being the first to rollout 5G commercial services nationwide, the Philippines\u2019 largest and only integrated telco PLDT is looking to hike investments in 5G to further improve customer experience and deliver cutting-edge services in 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This investment includes the expansion of its fiber network, which is now at 395,000 kilometers nationwide as of end-September. This fiber network supports the full suite of services from PLDT and its wireless arm Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), such as fiber-to-the-home, LTE and 5G.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAs we complete the build-out of our 4G network so that our coverage will be as close as possible to 100%, we are building out our 5G network as well,\u201d said Manuel V. Pangilinan, PLDT Chairman and CEO. \u201c5G will bring speed and capacity, not only to the individual users on the wireless platform, but also to the home.\u201d To date, Smart LTE covers 95% of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pangilinan emphasized the importance of providing connectivity to the home, with the pandemic forcing people to spend more time at home for work, study and entertainment. \u201cIn about a year or two, the ability of delivering fixed wireless services to the home will increase significantly,\u201d he said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Smart President and CEO and PLDT Chief Revenue Officer Alfredo S. Panlilio, 5G will further improve mobile data experience, particularly for video. \u201cThe major driver for business today is data. 72% of our revenues now is on data,\u201d Panlilio said. \u201cFrom a video consumption point of view, I think it will make the experience much better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Panlilio said that the company will be delivering more content through its different platforms to drive usage among its customers. \u201cAs an integrated telco, we are able to offer a full suite of services to our customers&#8211;from mobile internet to pocket wifi, to fixed wireless, to fiber. We believe that 5G will improve mobile internet capacity and experience, and we are also developing a lot of use cases. PLDT Enterprise will be driving some of those,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These initiatives form a large part of the PLDT Group\u2019s sustained investments in their network, which totaled some Php260 billion from 2015 to 2019. With its network rollout regaining momentum following the easing of lockdown restrictions, PLDT has leveled up its target capital expenditures for 2020 back up to Php70 billion or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These investments likewise lay the foundation to support increasingly bandwidth-intensive applications which are driven by technological advancements, including 5G, cloud services, the internet-of-things and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PLDT is looking to hike investments in 5G to further improve customer experience and deliver cutting-edge services in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":34911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1978,379,343,2727],"class_list":["post-40445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-5g","tag-pldt","tag-smart-communications","tag-technology-adaption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}