Globe Telecom has made the Philippines the first country in Southeast Asia to offer commercial “5G” fixed wireless internet.  The rollout of these services, from early July 2019, form part of Globe’s efforts to connect two million homes across the Philippines by 2020.

The at home ‘Air Fiber 5G’ postpaid plans that Globe has released offer Filipinos the option of high bandwidth and low latency services, especially given the challenge of rolling out fiber optic cables across the country.

“The arrival of 5G has caused excitement in the global world of telecommunications,” said Ernest Cu, president and CEO of Globe Telecom. “Today, we made a crucial step in fulfilling our goal of connecting more Filipino homes, and our vision of bringing first-world Internet to the Philippines,” Cu added.

The Globe At Home Air Fiber 5G postpaid plans will offer fiber-like speeds up to 100Mbps.  Super-sized data packages of up to 2 terabytes will be initially available in select areas in Pasig, Cavite, and Bulacan.

Globe at Home Air Fiber 5G will be available to eligible customers in July 2019. Plans come at P1899 per month for up to 20Mbps, P2499 for up to 50Mbps and P2899 for up to 100Mbps. All come with up to 2TB data capacity.

“Prior to Air Fiber 5G, we have aggressively utilized fixed wireless solutions to connect more homes and businesses to the internet over airwaves,” said Cu. “This strategy resulted in home broadband subscriber base increasing by 55.1 per cent to 1.7 million in the first three months of 2019 from 1.1 million in the same period in 2016.”

The Globe At Home Air Fiber 5G modem

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“Globe At Home Air Fiber 5G makes use of fixed location wireless radios instead of fiber optic cables which enables the company to go over the circuitous approval process of deploying a fiber optic cable – a task which proves to be arduous and involves securing multiple permits from local government units (LGUs),” Cu said.

“The right of process can sometimes take years to obtain, causing drastic delays in fiber optic roll-out completion,” Cu added.

Alberto de Larrazabal, Globe’s chief commercial officer, told reporters in the Philippines that Globe would use Huawei’s equipment, including radios and modems, to deliver “5G quality broadband internet.”

[Huawei and Finland’s Nokia were Globe’s equipment providers for its 4G-LTE service.]

Cu said that the company has been spending over 21% of its annual total revenues to upgrade and expand its telecommunication and IT infrastructure since 2012. “We have been ramping up our capital spend from P20.3 billion in 2012 to P43.3 billion in 2018, in order to provide our customers better broadband services,” he said.

Editor’s Notes:

1. The Philippines ranks 107^th among 178 countries in fixed broadband speed at 19.55 megabits per second (Mbps) versus the global average of 59.6 Mbps. Among 140 countries, it ranks 107^th in terms of mobile internet speed at 15.10 Mbps, nearly half of the 27.22 Mbps global average.
2. Globe is owned by Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corp, with Singapore Telecommunications Ltd holding a minority stake.

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References:

https://www.globe.com.ph/about-us/newsroom/consumer/globe-at-home-air-fiber-5g.html

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/06/26/globe-at-home-air-fiber-5g-unveiled-to-connect-more-filipinos/

https://sg.channelasia.tech/article/663513/philippines-rolls-commercial-5g-services-through-globe-telecom/

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/technology/699258/faster-internet-service-unveiled-to-connect-more-filipinos-at-home/story/

https://www.bworldonline.com/globe-launches-first-5g-service-in-southeast-asia/

https://techblog.comsoc.org/2018/11/26/huaweis-all-bands-go-to-5g-strategy-explained-partnership-with-china-telecom-described/