PLDT nears deals with 5G suppliers

MANILA, Philippines — Telco giant PLDT Inc. is moving closer to selecting suppliers for the commercial rollout of its 5G next year.

“There is one interesting vendor that we will visit next week,” PLDT chairman and chief executive officer Manuel V. Pangilinan said.

“The first step is to decide on the technology and the vendor. Hopefully, we could do that by yearend so that we could deploy quickly by the first half of 2020,” Pangilinan said.

He said PLDT is not limiting its potential deal for 5G equipment to just a single vendor.

“It may be one, it may be two,” he said.

PLDT is currently testing 5G “on a proof of concept basis” with technology providers such as China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE, Finland’s Nokia, Cisco Systems of the US and Sweden’s Ericsson.

PLDT was initially eyeing to launch its 5G services for home broadband and enterprise customers by the fourth quarter this year, but deferred it to next year to have a clearer view of the new technology.

5G is a wireless technology expected to provide high speeds with low latency, as well as open opportunities for use in healthcare and smart cities.

PLDT said it is best positioned to deploy 5G in the country given its fixed and wireless infrastructure, powered by the country’s most extensive fiber network.