PLDT
PLDT
Main page

PLDT

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
PLDT

PLDT, Inc., formerly known as the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (Filipino: Kompanya ng Teleponong Pangmalayuan ng Pilipinas), is a Philippine telecommunications, internet and digital service company.

PLDT is one of the Philippine's major telecommunications providers, along with Globe Telecom and startup DITO Telecommunity. Founded in 1928, it is the oldest and largest telecommunications company in the Philippines, in terms of assets and revenues.

The company's core businesses are fixed-line telecommunications, mobile telephony services, broadband, and internet of things services under various brands. It also has investments in broadcasting, print media, utilities, and direct-to-home satellite services, among others. It is listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange and is being controlled by First Pacific, a Hong Kong–based investment management company, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, through its subsidiaries, and JG Summit Holdings.

Throughout the past decades, PLDT has received numerous complaints from the Philippine House of Representatives and Senate regarding slow internet connections.

PLDT was established on November 28, 1928, by a Philippine Government act. Philippine legislature and approved by then governor-general Henry L. Stimson by means of a merger of four telephone companies under operation of the American telephone company GTE. Known as Act 3436, the bill granted PLDT a 50-year charter and the right to establish a Philippine telephone network linking major points nationwide. However, PLDT had to meet a 40-day deadline to start implementing the network, which would be implemented over a period of one to four years.

By the 1930s, PLDT had an expansive fixed-line network and for the first time linked the Philippines to the outside world via radiotelephone services, connecting the Philippines to the United States and other parts of the world.

Telephone service in the Philippines was interrupted due to World War II. At the end of the war, the Philippines' communications infrastructure was in ruins. U.S. military authorities eventually handed over the remains of the communications infrastructure to PLDT in 1947, and with the help of massive U.S. aid to the Philippines during the 1940s and 1950s, PLDT recovered so quickly that its telephone subscribers outpaced that of pre-war levels by 1953.

On December 20, 1967, a group of Filipino entrepreneurs and businessmen led by Ramon Cojuangco took control of PLDT after buying its shares from the American telecommunications company GTE. The group took control of PLDT's management on January 1, 1968, with the election of Gregorio S. Licaros and Cojuangco as chairman and president of PLDT, respectively. A few months later, PLDT's main office in Makati (known today as the Ramon Cojuangco Building) was opened, and PLDT's expansion programs began, hoping to bring reliable telephone services to the rural areas. It was also during that time that PLDT was able to use Intelsat II F-4 communications satellite to beam international events such as the Apollo 8 mission and the funeral of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.