MAKATI CITY – Globe Telecom is building a new Fiber Optic Backbone Network to boost its Internet services in the Visayas, including Negros Occidental, as part of its $100 million high speed improvement measures, Gil Genio, Globe Business head, said Tuesday.

“Hopefully by the end of this year we will see a world of difference from an Internet point of view in the Visayas,” said Genio, who is also chief operating officer  of Innove Communications Inc.

Genio said that, of their more than 120,000 Internet subscribers at the end of 2007, half of them were from the Visayas.

Globe currently has a FOBN from Luzon to Davao but as it continuous to grow in Visayas and Mindanao, that is no longer enough, he said.

So to add to its service capacity it is building the FOBN2 in the eastern part of the country to further improve its Internet services in the Visayas, Genio said.

This would address some subscriber-complaints of Internet connection problems in Bacolod, he said.

“By the end of this year, or even earlier, you will see a day and night difference…with faster and better connections,” he said.

“We are bullish about the broadband business and intend to intensify our efforts to build a more pervasive network, using wired and wireless technologies,” Gerardo Ablaza Jr., Globe president and chief executive officer, said.

EARNINGS GROW

At an annual stockholders meeting here, where Globe invited journalists from the Visayas and Mindanao, its chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala said that in 2007, “Globe set a new benchmark as it achieved record earnings and shareholder returns, while it continued to grow in subscriber base.”

Globe closed 2007 with a record core net income of P13.7 billion, and total cash dividends paid reached P15.3 billion, he said.

“Globe’s strong performance was in large underpinned by a much more vibrant domestic economy,” he said, citing the economy growing at its fastest pace in over three decades, a strong broad-based demand for telecom services, fueled by sustained growth in overseas remittances and an emerging business process outsourcing sector.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Gerardo Ablaza Jr., Globe president and chief executive officer, also told the stockholders that, beyond operating and financial results, Globe also has focused on corporate citizenship programs.

“We focused our efforts on promoting education through Text2Teach, Internet in Schools and GILAS (Gearing Up Internet Literacy and Access for Students), while supporting entrepreneurship and livelihood programs for the barangays through Globe Bridgecom sa Bayan,” he said.

He also noted that last October, Globe broke ground for the first ever Globe-GK Farming Institute for GK Communities in Barangay Sum-ag, Bacolod City.

“It is a community-based center that is designed to promote agriculture as a viable source of livelihood,” Ablaza said.

2008 OUTLOOK

Ablaza said Globe expects continued growth in 2008 but it may be muted compared to 2007 amid the strength of the peso and its impact on the spending patterns of the OFW families, the rise in crude oil prices and the impending food crisis globally.

Ablaza also said Globe in the past year was quite successful in its efforts to prevent cellsite attacks and cable theft.

He attributed this to their strengthened security strategy as they work closely with the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.*CPG

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