Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT) has spent P2 billion to deploy high-speed wireless broadband technology from northern Luzon to Mindanao.
In a statement, PLDT technology head Rolando Peña said the company has built the country’s first Time-Division Duplex-Long Term Evolution (TD-LTE) sites from Cagayan province in Northern Luzon to Davao del Sur in Mindanao. These will complement efforts to provide broadband service across the country through fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and Next Generation Network (NGN) services.
TD-LTE is one of the two wireless data transmission technologies that fall under the international standard of LTE, the other being Frequency-Division Duplex (LTE FDD), which is used by mobile networks.
“We are using LTE-FDD for our mobile networks and TD-LTE for fixed wireless broadband services, running on separate frequency bands. This ensures sufficient capacity for our fixed and mobile high-speed broadband services,” Peña said.
“This will surely transform the Filipino family’s internet experience by giving them ready access to multimedia services like social media, movies, games, and music,” he added.
According to industry data, the Philippines’ TD-LTE network is one of the largest in Asia Pacific with over 200 base stations and an allocated bandwidth of 100 megabits per second (Mbps).
Peña said PLDT is building more TD-LTE sites this year to reach the remotest areas of the country.
“We are committed to bring Internet access to each city and municipality in the country. TD-LTE will help us achieve that objective," he said.
Besides big provinces like Metro Manila and Cebu, TD-LTE sites also include Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Bataan, Isabela, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Aurora, Cagayan, Abra, and Nueva Vizcaya in Northern and Central Luzon; Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Quezon, Sorsogon, and Palawan in Southern Luzon; Aklan, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Bukidnon, and Leyte in the Visayas; and Misamis Oriental, Zamboanga del Sur, Agusan del Sur, Misamis Occidental, Lanao del Norte, and Sultan Kudarat in Mindanao.
Peña said TD-LTE service is only one of a range of broadband services that the PLDT Group offers to cater to the various needs of its customers.
“With maximum speeds per individual user of up to 42 Mbps, the ultra-fast TD-LTE is almost six times faster than WiMax and 21 times speedier than Canopy, and can serve more customers than both,” he said.
The P2 billion TD-LTE investment last year was part of the P28.8 billion capital expenditures of the PLDT Group in 2013 that expanded its fiber optic footprint to 78,000 kilometers.
InterAksyon.com is the online news portal of TV5, which is a member of the PLDT Group.
Source: http://www.interaksyon.com/business/85379/pldt-spends-p2b-to-deploy-high-speed-wireless-broadband
