Converge building more fiber ports in rural areas

MANILA, Philippines — Broadband provider Converge ICT Solutions Inc. plans to expand its fiber network to 11 million ports by 2027, as it hunts for more opportunities to scale up its subscriber base in far-flung areas.

Converge CEO and co-founder Dennis Anthony Uy said the company is placing more fiber lines in third- and fourth-class municipalities over the next two years for network expansion.

He said Converge wants to capitalize on the lack of broadband service in some of the farthest towns in Visayas and Mindanao, as it pushes to increase subscriber count to four million by 2027.

To achieve this, Uy said Converge would lay down at least two million ports nationwide through 2027. To date, Converge’s fiber network has reached 8.96 million lines, with 2.56 million being utilized by residential and enterprise customers.

For 2025, Converge is raising its capital expenditures to a range of P20 billion to P25 billion, with P12 billion allotted for infrastructure expansion. The company is investing P7 billion for the completion of two subsea cables and P5 billion for the construction of two data centers.

In particular, Converge expects to activate this year the Bifrost Cable System and the South-East Asia-Hainan-Hong Kong Express Cable System to boost its capacity for data transfer.

On top of this, Converge is opening new data centers in Caloocan City and Pampanga to support its own needs for information storage.

Converge chief commercial officer Benjamin Azada said the company is confident it can hit four million customers by 2027 on its portfolio’s strength and scaling coverage.

Converge grew its subscriber base by a fifth to 2.56 million last year, from 2.13 million in 2023, due to the flexibility of its service costs. Converge added 196,419 customers for flagship product FiberX, 90,458 for budget internet BIDA Fiber and 175,795 for low-cost option Surf2Sawa.

Also, Converge chief financial officer Robert Yu said the company is on the lookout for strategic partnerships similar to its asset-sharing deal with Sky Cable Corp. Converge is open to carrying tenants on its network to maximize fiber utilization.

Financially, Yu said Converge may consider returning to the bond market if interest rates decline, but nothing final right now especially as the company is well funded by its own revenue.

Converge’s net income went up by 19 percent to P10.81 billion in 2024, backed by a 15-percent jump in revenue to P40.61 billion, as the residential and enterprise segments grew.