Globe to activate 500 more cell sites for faster internet

MANILA, Philippines - Globe Telecom Inc. is accelerating the rollout of LTE service by using the 700 Megahertz (MHz) frequency as it aims to activate more than 500 cell sites for improved mobile internet services.

“We are confident that more and more of our customers will experience improved services as adoption of LTE-capable devices increases and as we continue to deploy LTE 700 in more sites. This is consistent with our strategy of continuously improving internet services using the previously idle 700-MHz spectrum that the NTC (National Telecommunications Commission) now allowed us to co-use,” Joel Agustin, Globe senior vice president for program governance, network technical group said in a statement.

He said the LTE sites using the 700 MHz frequency cover major business districts and highly-urbanized and populated areas where the number of customers using LTE 700 devices are steadily increasing.

In Quezon City where Globe powered its first cell site with 700 MHz, majority of the area is now covered with the technology.

Agustin said Globe intends to activate more than 500 LTE sites with the 700 MHz band across the country by the end of the year.

He said majority of these sites would be located in Metro Manila to allow the telco to provide 100 percent coverage of LTE 700.

Such move is expected to substantially improve mobile internet experience of customers.

Globe is utilizing the 700 MHz band in line with the commitment in the co-use agreement with Bell Telecommunications Philippines Inc. following its purchase with PLDT Inc. of the telco assets of San Miguel Corp. on May 30.

The Ayala-led telco is committed to deploy about 4,500 multiband, multimode software defined radio base station equipment to 95 percent of all municipalities and cities in the country.

With the deployment, Globe expects to improve overall customer experience in terms of speed and reliability of mobile internet services. 

Aside from the 700 MHz, the co-use agreement also allows Globe to utilize the additional allocation in the 1800 MHz, 2300 MHz and 2600 MHz bands.

The use of the other bands would help address growing customer requirement for bandwidth-intensive multi-media content.

Earlier this year, Globe also launched an initiative of creating an internet superhighway by deploying fiber optic cables in 20,000 barangays all over the country to provide faster and more reliable internet access in about two million homes nationwide by 2020.