MAKATI CITY, Philippines--Telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) said it is close to hitting the one million mark for the number of broadband subscriptions.

The company reported about 980,000 subscribers for its wireless and fixed line broadband services as of the end of 2008. Of this figure, 547,000 subscribers are from PLDT?s SmartBro wireless broadband service, PLDT said.

SmartBro?s new prepaid kit Plug-It recorded 124,000 subscriptions since it was introduced in April 2008, the company said.

PLDT?s fixed line MyDSL service added 168,000 new subscriptions, bringing the total to 433,000 subscribers.

Reporting on the company?s 2008 revenues, PLDT President and CEO Napoleon Nazareno said total revenues from their wireless broadband and Internet services increased to 45 percent since 2007. This brings the total revenues from these services to P11 billion as of 2008.

The arrival of low-cost and Internet mobile devices and small-form factor netbooks drove the demand for broadband subscriptions.

?The availability of the prepaid model also made it easier for people to get broadband connection,? Nazareno said.

The company is also investing on the new High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 850 cellular infrastructure that provides faster wireless Internet connectivity.