Because of its geography, the political situation and the way urban planning has proceeded in the country, Cu said it’s very difficult to deploy wireline infrastructure in most areas.
“We think the at-home experience is just as important as the nomadic experience, so we decided to use Wimax in most areas underserved by DSL,” he said.
Globe doesn’t generally offer Wimax where it has fixed infrastructure.
Asked to choose between LTE and Wimax where there is no DSL, Cu said the choice would depend on the application. “For fixed application at home, we would definitely offer Wimax as the first preference. For nomadic and mobility, it obviously would be 3G given the ubiquity of coverage and selection of devices.”
As for the need for more government involvement or regulation, Cu said the best protection for consumers is competition. He noted that the price of mobile broadband has dropped from 100 pesos per hour to just 20 pesos per hour.
“What more can the government do? The next thing is the service is free. I don’t believe the government shouldn’t have too much involvement is an industry that is already policing itself by way of competition. With the private sector part of the global economy and having world-class companies competing vigorously against each other is the best way the industry self-regulates itself.”
With some countries considering curbing operators’ ability to manage traffic, Cu said there is risk that fair-use policy will be relaxed, which disrupts the business case.
“These networks come at great cost and the investment is based on a certain set of assumptions and usage patterns. There will be infinite need for bandwidth, so there is the danger that if unlimited use is mandated by the government, then investment in broadband expansion will stop and the quality will diminish.”