Globe Telecom said it is ramping up the deployment of long-term evolution sites in the Visayas and Mindanao to provide better mobile data service.
Joel Agustin, Globe senior vice president for program governance at network technical group, said the company deployed close to 3,000 LTE sites, covering almost 60 percent of its physical sites in the southern regions.
“Our customers in Visayas and Mindanao are now enjoying the benefit of a more pervasive LTE network in the region following accelerated deployment of LTE sites using various frequencies. We expect customer experience to continue improving moving forward as we step up deployment of LTE sites,” Agustin said.
He said the deployment of LTE sites would address growing customer demand for bandwidth amid swelling consumption of multi-media content. Globe mobile data traffic surged 85 percent to 280 petabytes at the end of the first half from 151 petabytes a year earlier.
Agustin said that while lower frequencies such as the 700 MHz band could provide better signal penetration and offer stronger indoor coverage, the higher frequencies, such as the 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz bands, would provide additional capacity for data.
He said utilizing the 2600 MHz could provide additional capacity layer over existing 3G and LTE capacity layers, giving customers additional capacity and improving internet experience as data traffic carried on other frequencies are off-loaded.
Globe is also expanding its network infrastructure, such as cell sites. It raised its 2017 capital expenditures by $50 million to $800 million to fund the expansion of data-related projects.
