PLDT joins consortium of global tech giants

MANILA, Philippines - Dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has joined a consortium of global technology giants aiming to standardize the core platform and accelerate big data delivery worldwide.

PLDT is now part of the Open Data Platform (ODP) together with GE, Hortonworks, IBM, Infosys, Pivotal, SAS, Altiscale, Capgemini, CenturyLink, EMC, Teradata, Splunk, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, and VMware.

Eric Alberto, executive vice president for Enterprise & International and Carrier Business Group of PLDT, said the company envisions a Center of Excellence for Big Data in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region that would pioneer world-class data science expertise, carrier-grade analytics infrastructure, and market-attuned Big Data services to include platforms, real time analytics, and insights.

“As the PLDT Group sustains its Digital transformation, our Group-wide Big Data initiative will enable game-changing capabilities and insights for our clients, most especially in the Enterprise space,” Alberto said

Alberto, who is also president and chief executive officer of ePLDT, pointed out that PLDT is “very enthusiastic about the transformative power of this technology in enabling our Corporate customers to optimize operations and more importantly, to engage with their consumers in ways previously not thought possible.”

The PLDT Group’s Big Data service lines include Platforms-as-a-Service, Data Warehousing-as-a-Service, and Insights-as-a-Service among others. These services provide the analytics infrastructure as well as the data science expertise to unlock actionable insights from data sources and to process data feeds in real time.

Use cases for public sector, meanwhile, include transport planning, route optimization, and traffic monitoring. By employing sophisticated algorithms to analyze anonymous cell phone signals on the move, cities and roadway authorities can get a view of the traffic situation without deploying costly road sensors.

In retail, Big Data is used to measure foot traffic, analyze transactions, and mine loyalty card activity to better understand customers. Through this enhanced understanding, retailers are able to personalize offers, design campaigns, plan staffing-levels, manage inventory, and get the right products on shelves.

PLDT is among the largest implementers of Big Data and Real-time Analytics in Asean as it processes over 30 Terabytes of data on a daily basis, leveraging its own in-house talent of Data Processing Engineers, Data Scientists and Analytics experts.

For the Philippine market, PLDT is currently working with a select number of enterprise clients from a wide spectrum of industries for collaborative enterprise implementations.

PLDT president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno said the company aims to ensure the competitiveness of the Philippines in this Digital Age.

“Our foray into the Big Data Analytics space further leverages on our investments in network infrastructure and other strategic digital initiatives. We will sustain our commitment to transforming the PLDT Group to benefit all our stakeholders, and most especially, to providing leading-edge ICT solutions that contribute to the progress and development of the Philippine economy.” Nazareno said