Competition on the home broadband space is expected to further intensify in the second half of the year as the demand for more bandwidth continues and around 60 percent of the market remains untapped.
Internet service providers (ISP) in the Philippines have captured around 40 percent of the home broadband market.
“The 60 percent (market) is a lot of customers, if you’re looking at 25 million households. They (ISPs) are seeing 2 million to 4 million subscribers each,” Edgardo Cabarios, National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) deputy commissioner, said in a phone interview.
With this, ISPs have been aggressively expanding their networks and offering competitive prices to keep existing subscribers and lure new customers.
The demand for bandwidth is increasing every day, the NTC said.
“(Not) just the new market… the existing market want faster speed, higher capacity, they want more bandwidth,” Cabarios said.
The competition will further intensify with the anticipated commercial launch of billionaire Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) satellite broadband services in the country through its unit Starlink Internet Services Philippines Inc. in the fourth quarter of the year.
This will bring additional capacity and offer an effective internet service in missionary areas, said Cabarios.
“The entry of Starlink will just provide the additional capacity…satellite (internet service) is very effective in missionary areas. This will provide cost-effective solution to those areas,” he added.
He pointed out Starlink should partner with at least two fiber broadband providers to ensure the reliability of its internet service in the country.
Starlink can get the best price at the best quality since there are several potential fiber telecom providers in the country, such as Sky Broadband, Globe Telecom, PLDT, Converge ICT Solutions, Infinivan, Red fiber, among others.
The Philippines is set to be the first country in Southeast Asia to enjoy Starlink’s service which provides a low-Earth orbit satellite system designed to deliver broadband internet connectivity with speeds between 100 to 200 megabits per second, especially in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas where laying fiber cables is difficult.
Starlink prides itself in offering internet speeds faster than fiber optic cables as its satellite internet service provides a constellation of multiple satellites that orbit the earth at about 550 kilometers away which also provide worldwide coverage for its users.
The NTC approved last month Starlink’s registration as a value-added service (VAS) provider paving the way for the company to start offering internet access services to the Philippines.
Starlink’s VAS registration allows it to directly access satellite systems and build and operate broadband facilities to offer internet services. NTC’s swift processing of its registration was meant to expedite the immediate rollout of the service.
