DITO Telecommunity Corp. announced on Monday that it has started the rollout of its fifth-generation (5G) home Wi-Fi offering.
The company is piloting its 5G home Wi-Fi service in 146 villages in Metro Manila.
“Barangays in the City of Manila, Caloocan, and Quezon City will be the first to experience up to 500Mbps (megabits per second) of download speed through the DITO 5G Home Wi-FI Starter Kit,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.
DITO priced its Starter Kit at P12,990. The package includes the 5G modem with a subscriber identity module (SIM) card.
The company is spending over P50 billion on its network expansion this year, as it aims to cover 70% of the country’s population.
“As of the start of February, DITO has hit 50% of its 2022 goal of 12 million total subscribers,” it said in a recent statement.
“In regard the upcoming third Independent audit of DITO’s government commitments in terms of speed and population coverage in July, our network rollout remains on track to reach the 70% coverage and 55Mbps average download speed,” the company added.
DITO Telecommunity’s parent company, DITO CME Holdings Corp., recently postponed its P8-billion stock rights offering (SRO).
The listed company cited “less than ideal market conditions” as the Philippine financial markets opened the year on “a negative note,” following the surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections due to the Omicron variant and the hawkish stances of the US Federal Reserve.
Proceeds of the SRO were supposed to be used to invest in the expansion of its telecommunications services under DITO Telecommunity. To finance the move, DITO CME said it had secured commitments worth $4 billion in long-term debt under a project finance arrangement with foreign lenders. — Arjay L. Balinbin