MANILA, Philippines — Telco giant PLDT and its wireless arm Smart Communications Inc. are poised to embark on more 5G innovations next year after leading the 5G charge in the country this year.
PLDT and Smart said they are set to sign more 5G partnership agreements with technology, industry and enterprise partners, as well as pilot more 5G-powered digital services, and launch more Smart 5G cities across the country in 2019.
“We want to find out the right way to do 5G in the Philippines because 5G is different from any of the past technologies, 2G, 3G and 4G. 5G will provide a more flexible and powerful platform for more compelling and relevant services,” PLDT-Smart chief technology and information advisor Joachim Horn said.
“5G is versatile. We can actually customize its ability according to the use cases, and there are many new opportunities that we need to take time to test out. That is exactly what we are now starting to do,” Horn said.
PLDT and Smart have fired up the country’s first 5G cell sites and launched the first Smart 5G cities this year.
Last month, Smart has made the country’s first successful video call on a 5G connection between the newly launched Smart 5G cities in Pampanga and Makati City.
In June, PLDT and Smart launched the Smart 5G Technolab, a flagship facility for research and development, standardization, and testing of 5G.
In its ongoing LTE and LTE-Advanced roll-out, Smart has also been deploying 5G-capable equipment, as well as upgrading core and transport elements in preparation for future 5G deployment.
“Our focus for future 5G services is initially for enterprise customers, for whom it will mean completely new use cases, like with drones, Internet of Things and other specialized services, for example. These services can utilize 5G’s capabilities like low latency, very high resilience and very high reliability,” he said.
For next year, PLDT and Smart will be testing more 5G use cases for various industries to demonstrate the possibilities of 5G.
“We plan to start work on new smart cities in the first half of next year. They will be in different areas, with different interests, and with different vendors. This is because we want to explore with various types of customers how 5G can be set up for their particular use cases. When we do that, we will acquire the know how to best roll-out 5G to provide the best customer experience from day one,” Horn said.
PLDT said Smart has been testing 5G since 2016, when it achieved speeds of 2.5 gigabits per second using 100 MHz with latency of one millisecond over a “live” network.
This year, PLDT’s capex is expected to reach P58 billion, which includes allocations for the aggressive roll-out of its fiber broadband service, which also supports the stepped-up deployment of the mobile network by providing high-capacity links for cellular base stations.