PLDT network ‘unrivaled’

MANILA, Philippines—Publicly listed Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) said more of its subscribers now enjoy the improved coverage, service quality and network resiliency following the early completion of the company’s network modernization program this year.

In a statement issued Tuesday, PLDT said the combined networks of its mobile brands Smart Communications and Sun Cellular were now unrivaled by any other telecommunications player in the country.

The company, chaired by Manuel V. Pangilinan, was hinting at rival Globe Telecom, which is under scrutiny by government regulators due to a spike in complaints regarding the reliability of its services.

“The group’s investments have produced a network that is unrivaled in terms of coverage, capacity and resiliency,” PLDT president and CEO Napoleon L. Nazareno said. “What was already the most extensive and advanced network in the country has been further super-charged with our access network providing the widest coverage via the expansion of long-term evolution (LTE) sites and a transport network that rides on over 48,000 kilometers of fiber assets with an additional 6,000 kilometers of fiber-to-the-home rolled out.”

This brings the PLDT group’s total fiber assets to 54,000 kilometers, more than four times the 12,000 kilometers of fiber network being built by Globe.

“We are close to covering the whole of Metro Manila with the more reliable and faster fiber connection and gaining momentum in servicing the rest of the country,” Nazareno said.

He added that the PLDT group, through cellular subsidiaries Smart Communications and Sun Cellular, has established an access network that is enabled with 3G and LTE technologies, with 3G coverage reaching majority of the population and LTE piloting in a growing number of areas.

“No other provider comes close to the network that we have now, not just in terms of capacity but more importantly, in terms of resiliency and efficiency,” Nazareno said. “We are now in the best position to meet the demands of the future. We are extremely prepared for data explosion.”

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) earlier this month said it had alerted Globe Telecom, owned by Ayala Corp. and the SingTel group, about a spike in complaints of dropped calls, delayed messages and inconsistent Internet services.

The NTC said Globe earlier admitted that the problems were caused by the company’s network upgrades, but the telecommunications firm was quick to deny the claims.

Globe had said that its network problems stemmed from the congestion of its old legacy network, which is being replaced as part of the firm’s $790-million modernization program that is scheduled for completion early next year.