MANILA, Philippines ? The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and Globe Telecom are showing positive gains in their respective mobile Internet services, owing it to lower cost of the services as well as growing youth segment that are able to buy cheap notebook computers.

PLDT on Tuesday reported that its wireless broadband service called SmartBro grew 40 percent in the first quarter of 2009, earning P1.3 billion as a result.

This amount overshadowed the first quarter 2008 revenues of SmartBro, which stood at P919 million.

SmartBro?s subscriber base is currently 596,000. Of this number, 49,000 new subscribers were registered in the first quarter.

In total, PLDT?s wired, wireless and cellular Internet services earned P3.2 billion in the first quarter of 2009.

PLDT President and CEO Napoleon Nazareno said the availability of low-cost notebook computers and their launch of their HSPA (high-speed packet access) platform drove the demand for wireless broadband services.

Meanwhile, Globe Telecom also disclosed in its first quarter 2009 report that the subscriber base of their mobile broadband service Globe Broadband Tattoo grew 75 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008 to 96,709 total subscribers in the first quarter of 2009.

Globe Broadband Tattoo comprised more than half of the subscriber growth of the company?s broadband Internet service for the entire quarter.

In comparison, Globe?s wired broadband service garnered only a six percent increase in subscriber base to 158,804 total subscribers as of the first quarter of 2009.

The company is also rolling out the country?s first commercial WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access), a new wireless broadband service that allows for the fastest bandwidth among current wireless Internet services at 512 kilobits per second.

Globe?s WiMAX service is initially available in select areas in South Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Globe's overall broadband revenues (wired and wireless) for the first quarter of 2009 is pegged at P640 million.

Globe Telecom President and CEO Ernest Cu said the company is optimistic with its broadband programs and is expected to launch new services.

Both companies have been competing for the growing wireless Internet segment and have been launching their own services.

The current competition is now on the technology that will dominate wireless broadband; PLDT's HSPA 850 can deliver up to 14 megabits per second (Mbps).

WiMAX, a non-cellular technology, is capable of delivering a maximum of 70 Mbps.