Broadband dongle supplier Huawei expects 25% growth

CHINA-BASED Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., which supplies hardware to local telco firms, sees its revenues growing by a quarter this year to $400 million over roughly $320 recorded in 2010.
Hua Yang, president for the enterprise business group for Huawei Southeast Asia, said the growth of the company in the Philippines can be attributed to its services’ affordability and its different solutions being offered.

“[We do] not only [offer] telecom services but also ICT (information and communications technology) solutions,” Mr. Yang said at the launch of a training program.

“We continue bringing affordable solutions ... that has driven us in this market,” Mr. Yang added.

The firm sells handsets, dongles for broadband Internet and “various equipment” to local telcos such as the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and its mobile network provider Smart Communications, Inc.

Huawei also counts as clients Ayala-led Globe Telecom, Inc., and Gokongwei’s mobile brand Sun Cellular, which is operated by Digital Telecommunications Philippines, Inc.

Seventy percent of wireless voice traffic in the Philippines allegedly goes through Huawei’s platforms, while 80% of household Internet traffic also goes through the firm’s platforms, Nathan Wang, vice-president for the enterprise business group for Huawei Southeast Asia, said.

The firm has grown to over 400 employees in the Philippines during its 10-year stay in the country, he added.

Huawei and Asia Pacific College, which was founded by SM Foundation and IBM Philippines, inked an agreement yesterday for the provision of a training center.

Smart to launch 4G dongles

Giant wireless provider Smart Communication Inc. announced that it will launch a fourth generation (4G) dongle that can deliver up to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) internet speed for prepaid users.

Gio Bacareza, Smart head for Broadband, Internet and Data Servicess said the new dongle, due out this week, will use the evolved High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA+) technology.

HSPA is an amalgamation of two mobile telephony protocols--High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA).

These protocols extend and improve the performance of existing WCDMA protocols, an air interface standard found in 3G mobile telecommunications networks.

HSPA+, meanwhile, is a wireless broadband standard defined in 3GPP release 7 and 8 of the WCDMA specification. This provides data rates up to 84 Mbit/s in the downlink and 22 Mbit/s in the uplink with multiple input, multiple output technologies and higher order modulation.

Bacareza said that the services will be initially available in selected areas in the country were the 154 HSPA+ based station located--major urban centers including Iloilo City in Visayas and Zamboanga City in Mindanao and in Metro Manila.

For this year , Bacareza said that they expect their mobile broadband subscribers to reach 1.4 million.

To match the expected growth in subscribers, Smart, together with its parent company the Philippine Long Distance Co. (PLDT) has earmarked P67 billion to modernize for over two years to update and install network elements, wireless base stations, fiber optic cables and international gateways to further improve quality of service across all fronts.

Of the total, P34 billion was allocated for this year. P8.5 billion of which will be used for the upgrade of Smart and PLDT transport network.

Part of the transport network expansion, Smart said it has increased its access network capacity by 51 percent from 18.2 Gbps in May this year to 27.4 Gbps in July.

Smart Packet Core network has also increased by 89 percent from 14.5 Gbps in May to 27.4 Gbps in July .

To know the impact of its modernization program to its subscribers, Smart has asked independent professional engineering service provider NESIC Philippines, Inc. (NPI) to conduct a Speed tests on its mobile broadband services .
According to NESIC Philippines Inc. (NPI), Smart Bro Plug-It has outperformed its nearest competitor.
The NPI tests, which were conducted in 100 locations around the country between July 4 to July 6 showed that Smart Bro outperformed Globe Tattoo 100 percent of the time in terms of average download speeds.
The methodology used to measure the data was Speedtest.net and the test server is located in San Francisco, USA (SF Monkey Brains server). The average speed test is taken from a sample of five tests.
Of the total, 29 tests were done in Metro Manila; 21, Northern Luzon; 18, Southern Luzon; 15, Visayas and 17, Mindanao. While 32 tests were conducted in residential; 44, commercial and 24, school.
The NPI results also showed that there is an average difference of 0.74 megabytes per second (Mbps) between Smart Bro and Globe Tattoo with 26 areas reflecting a 1Mbps discrepancy or greater.
The speed test was commissioned by Smart. NPI was also the one who conducted the speed test for Globe last year.
In terms of peak speed, Smart Bro also beat the competition 99 percent of the time with an average difference of 1Mbps.
Globe, on the other hand, beat Smart Bro in only one of the 100 test locations -- at the Matutina Restaurant in Dagupan.
Peak speed refers to the absolute fastest speed while average speed takes all results into account.
"Our susbscribers are now enjoying the benefits of our improved network," Rolando G. Peña , Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Smart Technology Group Head said
To date, PLDT and Smart have a total of 42,000kms of fiber optic cables arranged in loops, with an additional 3,000kms of cabling set to be installed before end-2011.
A "looped" configuration makes a network more resilient as it offers alternative means of transmitting data even when primary line of communication have been severed.
Smart is also pioneering the fastest 4G technology in the Philippines with the introduction of LTE (long term evolution) technology called Smart Evolution.

PLDT profits dip in Q2 but see rebound in 2013

Profits of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) slid in the second quarter of the year on the back of declining call and text messaging revenues amid a maturing market and increasing competition.
PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan on Tuesday said the drop in earnings was largely expected, noting that as the company’s financial position remained strong, allowing for continued dividend pay outs for shareholders.
The company posted a core net income of P10.75 billion in the April to June period of the year, down 3 percent year-on-year. Striping the effects of foreign exchange, PLDT’s reported net income was 3 percent up at P10.56 billion.
On a year-to-date basis, core profit was down 1 percent to P21.02 billion, while reported profit was down 2 percent at P21.3 billion.
This came as first-half consolidate service revenues fell 3 percent to P69.6 billion. The company said the 5-percent growth in wireless broadband Internet revenues failed to offset the 2-percent decline in text messaging and 8-percent fall in mobile voice earnings. Wireless call and text revenues will make up about 68 percent of total earnings.
The company declared a dividend of P78 per share, in line with the firm’s policy of distributing 70 percent of its total core earnings to shareholders.
“While we anticipated the softening of our income position from a year-on-year perspective, the improvement of our first half results we see when compared with those of the second half of 2010 is encouraging,” he said in a statement.
Investment grade
PLDT announced that its obligations were recently upgraded to “investment grade” by rating firms’ Moody’s Investor Service and Fitch Ratings—a reflection of the company’s financial health, officials said.
At “investment grade,” PLDT’s debt notes are rated one notch higher than foreign-denominated securities issued by the Philippine government.
“PLDT is the only Philippine corporate with an investment grade rating,” PLDT president and CEO Napoleon Nazareno said.
Pangilinan said PLDT was the first Philippine entity to earn an “investment grade” rating. In the past, companies have never been allowed to be rated above their respective home countries. “But I think that policy has been lifted recently,” he said.
The company said the rating upgrades were a “validation of PLDT’s financial strength,” despite reporting lower profits so far this year.
Pangilinan said the company expected its profits to be boosted by its acquisition of rival operator Digitel Telecommunications Philippines Inc. to be completed by the second half of this year.
Awaiting approval
The P74.1-billion acquisition is currently awaiting the approvals of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Philippine Stock Exchange.
The company ended June with a total mobile phone user base of 47.8 million people, up 5 percent from last year, solidifying its position as the country’s largest telecom service provider.
Officials said PLDT earnings would likely continue to drop until 2012, but it would likely grow again by 2013 driven by new revenue streams, mainly broadband Internet services. “Broadband remains our top priority as we believe there is much room to expand on this front,” PLDT chief wireless adviser Orlando B. Vea said.