Globe on course to reach 95% of towns/cities with LTE by year end

Globe Telecom says it is on track to reach 95% of municipalities with its 4G LTE network by the end of this year, as it strives to meet consumer demand for mobile internet services. In the first six months of this year the Philippine operator says it deployed a further 1,752 LTE base stations, to boost the total to about 12,000 countrywide. According to Joel R Agustin, Senior Vice President for Program Governance of the Network Technology Group, the telco is embarked upon an aggressive rollout programme using sites capable of supporting the 700MHz and 2600MHz bands, and noted that between January-June, Globe’s mobile data traffic increased by 40% to 390 Petabytes, up from 280 Petabytes in the same period last year. Network improvement efforts will continue to be a priority due to customers’ growing use of smartphones to access the internet, video streaming apps, and games, Augustin said. ‘We are aggressively improving our existing network infrastructure by building more cell sites and base stations to enhance the quality of experience of our customers,’ he added.