Broadband to drive revenues

THE National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said it expects broadband – both fixed-line and wireless – to drive revenues of the country’s telecom service providers in 2012. Edgardo Cabarios, director of NTC’s common carrier and authorization department, said that broadband usage will grow in "triple digits". As of the third quarter of 2011, Smart Communications, Digital Communications and Globe Telecoms had a combined broadband base of more than 4 million, just a fraction of the estimated 30 million Filipinos who are using the Internet. But the commission doubts if broadband usage will soon overtake the number of people still using the traditional call and text services. The three telcos have a combined traditional call and text subscriber base of more than 90 million. Cabarios said that although the revenue growth on SMS and voices has been declining while that of broadband is going up, the latter is not yet expected to overtake the contribution of the traditional call and text. Cabarios said that it will take "two to three years" before broadband revenues will overtake that of the traditional. As the trend is towards broadband, the two giant telecom firms – Philippne Long Distance Telephone Co. and Globe – have infused huge investments to expand their network infrastructure to meet the anticipated surge in traffic. PLDT committed to spend total of P67 billion to expand and upgrade the core, access and backroom support elements of its network for the next two years, while Globe set aside $790 million for its modernization program in the next five years to improve its services. The mobile subscribers were seen shifting to social networking sites from using SMS and voices. Cabarios said that during this holiday season, it was the first time that there was no report of network congestion. "The anticipated traffic did not occur, as more subscribers used social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to greet their friends than send messages through text," Cabarios said.