Globe Telecom is fast-tracking the rollout of LTE service nationwide using the 700 MHz frequency under the co-use agreement approved by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
The company recently rolled out more than 150 sites mostly in Metro Manila as part of its commitment to improve the mobile internet in the country.
Joel Agustin, Globe senior vice president for Program Governance, Network Technical Group, said, “We are confident that more and more of our customers will experience improved services as adoption of LTE-capable devices increases and as we continue to deploy LTE 700 in more sites. This is consistent with our strategy of continuously improving internet services using the previously idle 700 MHz spectrum that the NTC now allowed us to co-use.”
Globe has noticed steady increase in customers using LTE 700 devices. Citing Quezon City, where Globe activated the first LTE 700 site in the country, Agustin said the technology now covers a majority portion of the city after the LTE 700 sites activated by Globe increased four times from the initial rollout of just 11 sites.
The company plans to activate more than 500 LTE 700 sites across the country by the end 2016, Agustin said. He added that majority of these sites are located in Metro Manila, enabling Globe to deliver close to 100 percent coverage of LTE 700 for the entire metropolitan area. This is turn, is expected to substantially improve mobile internet experience of customers in the region.
Globe Telecom is maximizing the use of the 700 MHz band in fulfillment of its commitment in the co-use agreement with BellTel following the sellout of San Miguel’s telco assets. To further improve customer experience, Globe plans to deploy about 4,500 multiband, multimode software defined radio base station equipment to 95 percent of total municipalities and cities in the country.
The NTC-approved co-use agreement also provided Globe with access to additional allocation in the 1800 MHz, 2300 MHz, and 2600 MHz bands.
Globe also launched early this year an initiative of creating an internet superhighway by deploying fiber optic cables in 20,000 barangays all over the country to provide faster and more reliable Internet access in about 2 million homes nationwide.
Rajani Baburajan
editor@telecomlead.com
