Globe, Innovation through Transformation

The data surge has changed the Philippine telecom market, once known strictly as the global capital of SMS. Globe (the country’s second largest operator) is looking to leverage all this data through a USD700 million investment in network modernization. Ernest L. Cu, its CEO and President, shared the particulars of this strategic move with WinWin.

According to Cu, the driver behind this move is the shifting in traffic. “The Philippines was formerly known as the SMS capital of the world, as you mentioned. With that, very thin network capacity is required to deliver that service. But over time, it shifted into voice, now subsequently into data, which has driven the need for higher network capacity. Other than doing incremental upgrades, we’ve decided to change out the network completely with a future-proof one, because today, we also see the advent of LTE, and we have actually deployed LTE as well. Although there are some margin pressures owing to the fact that voice and SMS profits are significantly higher than that for data, I guess with the transformation we are doing, we are trying to bring down the cost per megabit delivered for mobile broadband.”

Read the full interview