With the surge in demand for data, PLDT Inc. and wireless arm Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) are allocating between P88 billion to P92 billion capital expenditure in 2021, PLDT Chief Revenue Officer and Smart Communications President and CEO Alfredo S. Panlilio announced over the weekend.
"Providing good experience for mobile and fixed line customers remains to be our 'North Star', as we aim to elevate PLDT and Smart to the level of global operators," he added.
"We support the call of the President to improve our services, and we have spent around P260 billion in the last five years investing in our infrastructure," Panlilio explained.
“We invested P73 billion last year, and we are ending this year with approximately the same level of capex spend. Our capex commitment next year is at a level that will be 20-25% higher than this year’s capex, focused on expanding our fiber footprint and wireless coverage."
Overall, "We want to benchmark ourselves, not just with local competition, but with our neighboring countries like Thailand and Vietnam, as we want our network performance to be at par with global companies," Panlilio reiterated.
From July to November 2020, the average number of construction permits per month issued to Smart almost doubled, compared to the previous year's monthly average, according to data from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
The increase in issued permits, enabled telcos to build more telecoms towers.
Since the Anti-Red Tape Authority issued its Joint Memorandum Circular in August, Smart has secured more than 1,600 wireless permits.
To date, Smart has over 10,000 sites across the country, including more than 700 new cell sites fired up by the end of 2020 despite mobility restrictions and supply chain challenges due to COVID-19.
These additional permits help Smart increase its LTE population coverage, cover more municipalities and provide more capacity for dense areas.
PLDT's fiber infrastructure, the most extensive in the country, is now at more than 422,000 kilometers.
This fiber infrastructure supports Smart's 5G, 4G, 3G and 2G networks, which cover 96 percent of the population and are present in 95 percent of cities and municipalities.
As of November, this year, Smart has also increased the number of its base stations to over 58,000, increasing the number of base stations by 20 percent compared to end 2019.
Smart has rolled out additional 5G sites as it accelerates its 5G commercial services nationwide.