Philippines telecoms operator PLTD announced plans to expand its fibre network coverage by 80 per cent this year and reach 4.4 million homes.

The operator said at the end of 2016 its fibre network reached 2.5 million homes nationwide.

PLDT chairman and CEO Manuel Pangilinan told BusinessWorld: “We are stepping up our efforts to deliver unrivalled internet services to more homes in various parts of the country, from the Ilocos provinces in the North to Zamboanga in the South.”

The operator is using KT’s GiGa Wire hybrid fibre technology and Huawei’s G.fast, which can provide data speeds of between 600Mb/s and 700Mb/s, the newspaper reported.

Rival Globe Telecom, with a 51.5 per cent share of mobile connections in the country, committed late last year to replacing copper lines with fibre and set a goal of reaching two million homes by 2020 with speeds of at least 10Mb/s.

Pangilinan said last year PLDT would reduce capex in 2017 after investing heavily over the last few years to expand its mobile coverage. The company in Q3 increased its capex budget by PHP5 billion ($100 million) from the original guidance of PHP43 billion, with the additional expenditure related to the rollout of network using the newly acquired frequencies from San Miguel Corp.

PLDT, the largest telecoms operator in the Philippines by turnover, faced slowing growth and a sharp drop in profitability over the past few quarters. Its mobile unit Smart’s market share dropped below 50 per cent after it lost 2.8 million subscribers in 2016.