MANILA – Globe Philippines recently announced that Huawei's AirPON solution is helping Globe to build a faster and better fiber access network regarding FMC strategy. This solution utilizes existing thousands of wireless sites, helping Globe significantly improve FTTH network construction efficiency, reduce costs, and effectively cope with the network construction challenges brought by full-service transformation.

As a leading mobile operator in the Philippines, Globe has set up the full-service operation strategy and started to build full-fiber access networks since 2015. However, as a mobile operator, Globe faces huge challenges during network construction. 60% of existing equipment rooms have insufficient space for optical access devices. Site selection for new equipment rooms is difficult due to complex ROW acquisition and approval procedures which take 8–10 months. To make matters worse, trenching, cable routing, and fiber splicing are all time consuming and require professional skills.

To meet Globe's requirements for fast network construction, Huawei and Globe cooperated to explore new fixed network construction modes for mobile operators. Following the "fast network construction" principle, Huawei launched the innovative AirPON solution, consisting of Huawei's OptiXaccess series Blade OLTs/Mini OLTs and OptiXstar series ONTs.

The solution has the following advantages:

Wireless pole and tower sites on the live network are reused to deploy Huawei OptiXaccess series blade OLTs. Two technicians can deploy one site in a day, making site selection simpler and construction faster. In addition, the ODN network is deployed from wireless sites, shortening the fiber deployment distance without ROW issues for feeder fibers.

Huawei innovative FTTH technology and solution helped Globe to speed up the FTTH deployment and reduce the E2E cost as well. With those solutions, Globe made a great achievement of 2021.

As of end-September 2021, Home broadband revenues posted a record ₱22.4 billion, exceeding the same period of 2020 by 15%. The accelerated fiber rollout already yielded positive results with the increased take up of FTTH lines of 240% and fiber revenues growing by 169% against a year ago. Compared to the same period of 2019 or before the COVID-19 outbreak, Home broadband revenues likewise grew by 39%. Total Home broadband subscriber base rose from 3.5 million to 3.7 million this period, with the wired broadband customer base growing by 32%.

Robert, Globe's CTO, said "Globe is transforming from a mobile operator to a fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) operator. Huawei's AirPON solution helps us efficiently roll out FTTH networks without ROW and pole acquisition, and enables us to quickly provision fiber broadband services with an ultimate experience to our users."

According to Jeffrey Zhou, President of Huawei's Access Network Domain, "Many operators choose FMC as their business strategy, and full-fiber access network construction will continue to accelerate. Huawei's AirPON solution is designed to help mobile operators fully utilize existing pole and tower sites to quickly and efficiently build fiber access networks. We are delighted to cooperate with Globe in fixed access network construction. Huawei will continue to provide innovative solutions to help our customers build access networks that can smoothly evolve to meet future requirements."

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd