Globe to bring commercial 5G by 2nd quarter next year

POSTED BY: Lionell Go Macahilig
2018-06-09 15:00:00 PHT

Globe Telecom officially announced its adoption of fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology in the Philippines, which will be commercially available in the form of 5G Globe At Home by the second quarter of 2019.

Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu revealed that the 5G technology would allow the telco giant to use Air Fiber technology in connection with the deployment of fixed wireless broadband at fiber speeds that would benefit both individual customers and business clients. "Air Fiber Internet, which makes use of fixed location wireless radios instead of fiber, could provide speeds ranging from 50Mbps to 100Mbps," Cu added.

"We have been preparing our network for some time now with our existing vendor partners, including Huawei Technologies. We are happy to bring the Philippines in line with other countries that are early adopters of 5G. Once again, we stay true to our commitment to bring first-world Internet to the country," Cu shared.

Air Fiber Internet will allow Globe to bypass the local government units' (LGUs) bureaucratic approval process when deploying a fiber optic cable. This procedure can sometimes take years, resulting in delay of fiber optic rollout completion. "We can bring Internet to more homes by deploying 5G compared to a typical fiber optic rollout," Cu said.

Moreover, the 5G technology is anticipated to speed up the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) in the country. Globe earlier said it is enabling it network by utilizing its spectrum assets, including the 700MHz band. The Globe network has one of the largest deployments of Massive MIMO (MM) in Asia as part of its strategic technology roadmap since 2016. MM is the fundamental access technology for 5G.

Back in November 2015, Globe expanded its collaboration with Huawei by signing a five-year contract involving the planning and design of a wireless broadband network, and the creation of a wireless innovation center. In addition, Huawei was a technology partner of Globe when it started its USD 700-million network modernization program in 2011.