According to DITO Telecommunity Corp.’s chief administrative officer, the company is now conducting a “pleasant user test” of its broadband internet service, which is expected to be commercially accessible next year.
On August 13, DITO Chief Administrative Officer Adel A. Tamano told BusinessWorld Live on Cignal TV’s One News Channel, “We will be entering the broadband area; we are undertaking what is known as friendly user test for that.”
“At the very least, we will be entering the broadband area sometime early next year,” he continued.
On Saturday, DITO announced the addition of seven new areas to its mobile service. Tarlac, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, and Misamis Oriental are among the affected areas.
Since its commercial launch in March of this year, the company has connected over two million members in less than five months.
“For the time being, we’re largely focused on mobile, and we do believe that the COVID crisis will not endure indefinitely. People will return to work, return to school, and mobile services will become even more in demand, so that is our emphasis for now, but broadband is a market we want to engage in as well,” Mr. Tamano added.
The company’s capital expenditure (capex) plan for the next five years is P250 billion.
“We’ve spent almost P150 billion this year. When it comes to setting up a telecom service, the first step is to build up the network… We’ll invest considerably during the following four years, but not as much as we did in the first 1.5 years. Mr. Tamano speculated that the amount would be around P25 billion to P30 billion in the following years.
DITO intends to take a 30% share of the market. “That is a long-term perspective. But, given the rate we’re going, one of our concerns now, to be completely honest, is whether we have enough subscriber identity modules (SIMs) to meet demand,” the company executive stated.
“I believe that part of the reason is that some people use us instead of broadband because of the speed of our internet in locations where we have good signal… Mr. Tamano explained, “I believe, because people are working from home, it makes things much cheaper for them to use our service than to use the service of other telecoms or other broadbands.”
Via: BusinessWorld