Globe Telecom has entered a collaboration with the city government of Manila to roll out fiber broadband technology in Binondo. This initiative will provide internet connectivity with speeds of up to 1Gbps to the world’s oldest Chinatown.
Early this year, Globe made a call for local governments’ support for its initiative to build on its network infrastructure and provide better a internet experience for its customers, as part of efforts to transform the Philippines into a digital nation by 2020. The city government of Manila, led by Mayor Joseph Estrada, was the first government to respond to the call.
The fiberization of the entire Binondo district, an age-old center of commercial activities in the capital, is expected to benefit business and residential establishments in the area and is expected to drive business growth in the district. The project will be completed in the third quarter of the year.
“Globe is able to deploy fiber broadband technology in Binondo only because we are united with the local city government in realizing a vision of developing ‘connected communities’ where both enterprise clients and customers at home get to experience the full benefits of having world-class data connectivity,” Globe chief commercial officer Albert de Larrazabal said.
“We hope to replicate the realization of this vision in many other areas in the country as we all aspire to further drive local economic growth.”
The deployment of fiber broadband technology in Binondo will deliver ultra- fast internet to at least 5,000 new business and home subscribers as part of the initial rollout, Larrazabal said.
Globe will also roll out small cell technology in various parts of Binondo as part of its efforts to expand network coverage and capacity.
The pilot rollout of fiber broadband technology in Binondo forms part of Globe Telecom’s initiative of creating an internet super highway nationwide. By forming partnerships with other local government units, the operator plans to deploy fiber in 20,000 districts by 2020 that will provide internet access to around 2 million homes nationwide.
Parallel to this, Globe will also invest in capacity enhancement for both mobile and wireline using different technologies that include 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi.