Internet subscribers climb to 2.5 M as of end-2007
Mary Ann Ll. Reyes
Philippine Star
The number of registered Internet subscribers in the Philippines has increased to 2.5 million as of the end of last year, according to the National Telecommunications Commission.
From only half a million in 2001, the number of subscribers of NTC-registered Internet service providers or ISPs has jumped to two million in 2006 and then to 2.5 million in 2007.
These figures, however, do not include those who use the Internet using prepaid accounts or those who go to Internet cafes to surf the Web,
There are now 488 NTC-registered ISPs, compared with 408 in 206 and 64 in 2001.
In a recent report, the commission also announced that the country’s teledensity (taking into account only landlines) was at 8.10 percent as of end-2007 in terms of installed telephone capacity and 4.45 percent in terms of subscribed capacity.
As of end-2007, the number of installed telephone lines was at 7.168 million, of which only 3.94 million is subscribed. In computing teledensity, a national population figure of 88.5 million was used.
However, the actual teledensity is much higher, if the number of mobile phone users is taken into account.
As of end-2007, the cellular mobile telephone system (CMTS) density was at 64.76 percent, compared with 50.88 percent in 2006, 41.3 percent in 2005, 39.85 percent in 2004 and 27.77 percent in 2003. CMTS density means that of the 88.54 million Philippine population, 64.76 percent use mobile phones.
Meanwhile, the NTC report said Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) had the most number of installed landlines at three million, of which 2.1 million is subscribed. In terms of market share, PLDT had 41.99 percent (installed) and 53.5 percent (subscribed).
Globe’s Innove, meanwhile, had 1.5 million installed lines, of which 329,908 was subscribed. Market share for Innove was 21.03 percent (installed) and 8.37 percent (subscribed).
Bayan Telecommunications had 443,910 installed landlines of which 379,724 are subscribed for a market share of 6.19 percent (installed) and 9.64 percent (subscribed).
The number of telecommunications providers has not increased much since 2002.
There were 73 local exchange carriers in 2007 compared with 74 in 2002. Also, there were 14 inter-carrier carriers in 2007, a number that has not grown since 2002.
Also, there are still 11 international gateway facility (IGF) providers since 2002.
The area of growth is in the mobile phone service sector. From seven CMTS operators in 2002, the number has increased to 10 in 2007. The number of value-added service providers without networks has also grown substantially from 186 in 2002 to 488 last year.
