Fiber to the Home: PLDT fibers up Marikina City

Leading telco and digital services provider PLDT continues to extend the reach of its fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) services through its Fibr City program. The latest expansion area: Marikina City in Metro Manila, the country’s bustling shoe capital.

Through a partnership with the Marikina City local government, PLDT’s FTTH roll-out covers all the 16 barangays of Marikina, namely: Barangka, Calumpang, Concepcion Uno, Concepcion Dos, Fortune, Industrial Valley, Jesus Dela Peña, Malanday, Marikina Heights, Nangka, Parang, San Roque, Santa Elena, Santo Niño, Tañong, and Tumana.

This enables residents in these areas as well as those in villages like Vista Valley, Provident, Monte Vista, Cinco Hermanos, Goodrich, Patricia Homes, Friendly Village, Pangilinan, Rancho Estate, among other subdivisions, to enjoy PLDT Home Fibr’s world-class internet services in their homes.

Businesses in Marikina, including those located along Lilac St., Shoe Ave., Bonifacio, Gil Fernando, and Sumulong avenues can likewise be served by PLDT’s FTTH facilities.

“Equipped with PLDT Home Fibr, the country’s most powerful broadband, our Home subscribers in Marikina can have access to fiber-fast internet speeds of as much as 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) which allows them to download movies and videos in seconds, browse multiple websites quickly and play games without any lags,” said PLDT Marikina Consumer Experience Svc Ops Zone Head Romerico N. Gonzales.

“Businesses can use this powerful connectivity to run security and other applications in their stores and other facilties,” he added.

Nationwide FTTH program

PLDT’s FTTH expansion in Marikina City is the latest phase in PLDT’s aggressive nationwide fiber expansion program. It has already transformed key urban areas into PLDT Fibr Cities starting with Toledo City in Cebu, General Santos in Mindanao, Naga City in the Bicol region, as well as South Metro Manila, East Metro Manila, and central business districts like Rockwell Makati and Bonifacio Global City, while Cavite became the first “Smart Province.”

PLDT and Smart SVP and Consumer Business Market Development Head Oscar Enrico A. Reyes, Jr. pointed out that: “By the end of the third quarter of 2018, PLDT’s fiber coverage had reached 5.75 million homes, surpassing the full year target of 5.3 million homes for 2018. Total capacity reached 2.25 million ports which is more than double the count as of end-2017 and above the 2.20 million ports targeted for 2018. At the end of September 2018, there were 1.25 million ports available for subscription, placing us in a good position to provide all PLDT customers with fiber-powered broadband services within the next 12 to 18 months.”

LTE-A in Marikina

In the case of Marikina, the city – like a growing number of urban areas in different parts of the country – has also benefitted from Smart Communications’ roll-out of high-speed mobile internet services using Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced facilities.

LTE and LTE-A are currently the best technologies for mobile data. LTE-A in particular can deliver very high data speeds using carrier aggregation which combines the capacity of two or more radio frequency bands. With 5CC (which combines 5 frequency bands), users of 5CC-capable smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S9 have posted data speeds of up to 500 Mbps in Marikina.

“Residents of Marikina can thus experience best-in-class data services using either Smart’s mobile service or PLDT’s FTTH,” Gonzales said.

Best video viewing

The roll out of high-speed data services on fixed and mobile networks is boosting ongoing shift of Filipinos to online video viewing.

On fixed, PLDT Home Fibr will also enable Marikina subscribers to enjoy the best online video entertainment options from PLDT Home’s renowned global partners, including US-based streaming pioneer Roku. FTTH allows the seamless and stable streaming of high definition (HD) video content, minimizing latency and pixelization.

“Filipinos are taking to online video viewing in a big way. The new PLDT Home TVolution Lite powered by Roku is the latest streaming device that enables subscribers to turn their TV into a digital entertainment powerhouse. It is available for only P99 per month as an add-on service to their PLDT Home Fibr Plan, delivering amazing entertainment features that make it the perfect device to stream and watch videos,” said Reyes.

He added that “the new PLDT Home TVolution Lite powered by Roku bolsters our commitment to Filipino families who now have more reasons to bond at home with convenient access to amazing video content from PLDT’s world-leading partners like Netflix, Cignal, iflix, Fox+, and YouTube.”

Underpinning PLDT’s Fibr City program is its massive network investment program. The PLDT Group has invested P300 billion or $6 billion over the last 10 years to roll out the country’s most extensive fixed and wireless network that includes a transmission and distribution network infrastructure which now has reached 221,000 kilometers (kms.), exceeding the full year 2018 target of 210,000 kms. PLDT’s fiber optic transmission and distribution network also supports Smart’s mobile network by providing high-capacity fiber connections for LTE base stations.