Globe Telecom of the Philippines is setting aside USD850 million for capital expenditure in 2018, a large portion of which will be committed to providing ultra-high speed internet services to two million homes by 2020. Ayala-led Globe disclosed its CAPEX requirements in a Philippine Stock Exchange filing on Friday, noting that the sum broadly mirrors its full-year spend for 2017. Globe president and CEO Ernest Cu confirmed his focus to fund improvements to the company’s data network and address the surge in customer demand for on-demand video content. ‘The majority of the company’s CAPEX for 2018 is geared to meet customer demand for more bandwidth-intensive content which, in turn, will support the revenue momentum of our data-related services,’ he said, adding: ‘We continue to be efficient in our network build, evidenced by the superiority of our mobile network, in terms of higher 3G and LTE availability both on a regional and nationwide basis’. Indeed, as well as shoring up its residential broadband capabilities Globe plan to deploy Massive MIMO technology in 2018, thereby expanding and enhancing its LTE network.