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The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. will
provide Internet broadband service in Cebu, deemed one of the
country’s business process outsourcing hotspots for information
and communications technology.
“We believe broadband services
are crucial catalysts for development that will complement Cebu ’s
expanding talent pool for ICT,” said Eric R. Alberto, head of
PLDT’s corporate business group.
The company sees the Philippines
increasingly becoming an alternative ICT hub for outsourced business
next to India, and Cebu, Alberto affirmed, is one of its BPO
hotspots for ICT.
However, he said, “It would
take a confluence of efforts from the government, academe and
private sector to catapult the country past India to the top of the
BPO industry.”
PLDT had allotted between
P20-billion and P22-billion capital expenditure for this year to
finance the rollout of the next generation network broadband
business and expansion of its mobile-phone business.
It will install 600,000 to
700,000 NGN lines this year from an initial rollout of 150,000 in
2005.
As of end 2006, PLDT’s
broadband market in the country grew more than doubled to about
340,000 subscribers in 2006 and its dial-up Internet usage increased
in lower income households.
--Darwin G. Amojelar
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