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GLOBE Telecom Inc., the Philippines’ second-largest mobile-phone
service provider, said it has set aside millions of pesos this year
to relocate existing cell sites and prevent interference of its 3G
(third-generation) frequencies.
Documents submitted to the National
Telecommunications Commission showed that in 2007, Globe has
allocated P48 million to relocate the existing legacy facilities of
the National Power Corp., National Transmission Corp., the Armed
Forces of the Philippines and the National Irrigation Authority all
of which are currently using the company’s assigned 3G
frequencies.
Last year Globe spent P4 billion to roll out its
3G network. In addition, the company spent heavily for marketing
programs to increase consumer awareness of the benefits of the
latest craze in telephony.
“Huge allocations for 2007 have also been made
for more marketing programs, 3G handsets and devices, and additional
3G service billing capabilities,” the telecom company said.
It serves 240,000 units of 3G-capable handsets.
Globe 3G services cover areas in Metro Manila,
Metro Cebu and Metro Davao as well as key provincial capitals and
municipalities in 28 provinces of the Philippines.
“In terms of committed 3G coverage compliance,
Globe has actually more than met the commitments for 2006,” the
telco said.
It has installed more than 1,006 3G node base
stations, at least nine 3G radio network controllers, two servers,
three media gateways, six transmission aggregators, four service
GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) nodes.
Globe also deployed a new 10 Gbps (Giga bytes
per second) fiber optic high-capacity transmission network called
MetroNet at a cost of P100 million and is in the process of
upgrading its existing megawatt network.
The telco also made commercial agreements with
13 carriers in 12 countries in order to provide international 3G
roaming. These countries are Singapore, Malaysia, Israel, Taiwan,
Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxemburg, Switzerland,
Hong Kong and Sweden.
Globe added that it also established deals with
44 carriers in 25 countries to enable two-way 3G video calling.
These countries are Singapore, Taiwan, Austria, Belgium, Croatia,
Finland, Luxemburg, Poland, Malaysia, France, Sweden, Switzerland,
Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, Romania, Mauritius, Portugal, Slovenia,
Czech Republic, New Zealand, Norway, Indonesia and South Korea.
--Darwin G. Amojelar
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