MANILA, Philippines--Broadband subscriber growth is mostly place in urban areas, a Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) top executive said.

PLDT President and CEO Napoleon Nazareno said there is strong potential for broadband growth in the Philippines because of the current low Internet penetration (measured in terms of number of subscribers against the population) that is coupled with high awareness.

"Growth is going to be substantial over the next few years. It is pretty much looking like the cellular business was a few years back where penetration rates were low, but the awareness was high," said Nazareno.

The PLDT executive said broadband growth will be driven by continuing drop in PC prices, the deployment of wireless broadband networks, and the growth in overseas Filipino remittances.

"It used to be that the overseas Filipino workers when they come home, they bring in televisions, stereos. Now they are bringing in PCs, laptops, and that helps the broadband growth a lot," Nazareno said.

Based on its financial report, PLDT has more than doubled its broadband subscribers to 579,000 in 2007 compared to figures in 2006.

PLDT said Smart Bro, a fixed wireless broadband service offered by subsidiary Smart Communications, attracted about 180,000 subscribers last year, resulting in 302,000 total subscribers by yearend 2007.

Meanwhile, PLDT's digital subscriber line (DSL), a wired broadband service using copper lines, nearly doubled its subscribers to 264,000 in 2007 from 133,000 in 2006.

PLDT said that its broadband Internet service revenues grew by 46 percent to P7.6 billion, or about 6 percent of the total service revenues of the PLDT group in 2007.

Nazareno said that Smart Bro was fast-growing in areas outside of Metro Manila, where the population density is lower.

PLDT claims that it now controls more than 70 percent of the Philippine broadband market.