Broadband rising as next battleground for RP telcos

Amid lackluster demand for mobile phone services, broadband Internet connectivity is fast rising as the next battleground for telecommunications companies.

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has reported that its total broadband subscriber base now stands at 880,000, 51 percent higher than the figure as of end -2007.

Rival Globe Telecom, meanwhile, said it is significantly growing its broadband subscriber base, which has reached 175,000 as of end-September this year, compared with 116,000 in the same period last year, also a 51 percent increase.

Smart Bro, the wireless broadband service of PLDT’s Smart Communications, showed no signs of slowing down as its wireless broadband subscriber base grew 57 percent for the first nine months of 2008 to reach 473,000 as of end-September adding about 65,000 new subscribers for the third quarter alone.

Smart’s prepaid Plug-It service, which was introduced in March 2008, already has over 76,000 subscribers as of end-September as it made the Internet available to a broader segment of the population with affordable sachet pricing, nationwide coverage and easy loading.

Plug-It offers instant Internet access through a portable wireless modem and is available in all areas where Smart’s network coverage is present.

“The continued success of Plug-It’s prepaid version validates our belief that Filipinos are Internet savvy and we will be there to serve this expected demand for Internet access with services suited to the market’s needs,” Smart chief wireless adviser Orlando Vea said.

Globe officials, meanwhile, reported that the company experienced an almost three-fold increase in broadband subscriber net adds, with strong contribution from Visibility, their broadband-on-the-go service.

Globe has recently launched its Visibility prepaid package with full mobility, offering speeds of up to 1.8 mbps, using 3G with HSDPA.

The company also said it will be commercially launching in the first quarter next year its Wi-Max service, which is now being rolled out and finetuned.

Meanwhile, PLDT’s fixed broadband digital subscriber line (DSL) continued to grow as broadband subscribers grew by over 124,000 to reach 388,000 at the end of the first nine months of 2008 from 264,000 at the end of 2007. PLDT DSL generated P3.9 billion in revenues for the first nine months of 2008, up 41 percent from P2.8 billion in the same period in 2007.

With corporate data and DSL services contributing 37 percent of total fixed line service revenues, these services managed to offset declines in other segments of the fixed line business such as local exchange and national long distance. As a result, fixed line service revenues increased two percent to P36.7 billion in the first nine months of 2008 from P35.8 billion last year.

Broadband and Internet services contributed P7.9 billion in total revenues (eight percent of total service revenues) during the first nine months of the year, 48 percent higher than last year’s.

Globe’s total capital expenditure for the first nine months of 2008 amounted to P13.6 billion, 49 percent higher the previous year’s P9.1 billion due to increased expenditure for its broadband rollout, among others.

Its wireline service revenues registered a five percent increase to P5.3 billion due to growth in the company’s broadband and wireline data businesses. As of the end of the third quarter, its fixed wired and wireless broadband subscribers, excluding Visibility, increased 41 percent year-on-year and boosted broadband revenues by 41 percent to P1.19 billion.