SURIGAO DEL NORTE — World Mobile has switched on SuperWiFi, a fibre-backed public network, at four locations in the Municipality of General Luna on Siargao Island targeting the town's busiest gathering points, several of which sit in cellular dead zones.
SuperWiFi covers the town's four highest-traffic locations: the farmers and fish market, the boardwalk, the Town Center church and Bravo Resort, opening a rollout designed to reach communities throughout the Philippine archipelago.
The launch is the first live service under eSari-Sari, World Mobile's community distribution programme in the Philippines, and the opening stage of a deployment planned across 2,140 locations nationwide.
Anyone within range of a live AirNode can connect today. Users select the "eSariSari WiFi" network on any phone, tablet or laptop and purchase access starting at ₱10 for a 7-day pass, with 30-day 5GB data packages starting at ₱48 - delivering high-speed internet at rates up to 80 per cent below entry-level packages offered by traditional mobile network operators, paid via GCash, Maya, Visa, Mastercard, Bancnet, load or Cash at a host store.
Access is sold in short-duration passes or daily and weekly bundles with no contract, no credit check and no minimum term. Here's the full price ladder:
7-Day WiFi Pass: ₱10 (10 Mbps Down / 5 Mbps Up)
5GB Data Pass (30-Day Validity): ₱48 (20 Mbps Down / 20 Mbps Up)
10GB Data Pass (30-Day Validity): ₱89 (20 Mbps Down / 20 Mbps Up)
Frontier Core FTTx Dedicated Fibre Tiers (Excl. VAT):
e110 Core: ₱1,500
e330 Plus: ₱2,000
e550 Pro: ₱2,500
e1650 Max: ₱5,000
Fibre, not a compromise
Rural wireless in the Philippines has typically meant accepting less: slower speeds, congested backhaul, and service that degrades the farther you get from a city. In Siargao it has often meant nothing at all, patchy cellular coverage, dead zones in the middle of town, and mobile data as the only fallback.
SuperWiFi runs on fibre backhaul, delivering 300 Mbps in locations where that level of performance has not previously been available at any price. It is built to urban connectivity standards rather than offering a reduced rural version of them.
Why Surigao del Norte
The province was chosen as the launch market precisely because of what makes it hard to serve. Its population is spread across Siargao, Dinagat and dozens of smaller islands, separated by water that makes conventional network economics fail. Centralised operators have never had a commercial reason to build there.
A model that works in those conditions works almost anywhere in the archipelago. That is the point of starting here.
Live sites, live users
The first sites went live at four locations in the Municipality of General Luna on Siargao Island: Bravo Resort, the island's most popular resort; the boardwalk; the farmers and fish market; and the Catholic church at the General Luna Town Center.
The placements follow foot traffic rather than property lines. These are the four points in town where the most people are at any given hour. Vendors and buyers trading each morning at the market, congregations at the church, residents and visitors along the boardwalk and at the resort.
Several of those locations sit in cellular dead zones, where the only connectivity option has been mobile data bought in increments, at a cost that adds up quickly for a household or a market vendor. SuperWiFi gives those areas a fixed, fibre-backed alternative.
Each AirNode is hosted and operated at community level. Cooperatives, sari-sari stores and local businesses host the hardware, maintain the site and earn a share of the revenue the network generates the same structure World Mobile operates in Pakistan, Zanzibar and the United States.
Because access is paid, the money spent on connectivity stays partly within the community that provides it, rather than leaving for a head office in Manila.
For the communities now covered, the change is immediate: students can complete online coursework without travelling to find a signal, small businesses can accept digital payments and reach customers online, and households can access government services, banking and telehealth from home.
In an island province, that access also carries a resilience dimension. Community-hosted infrastructure gives municipalities a connectivity layer that does not depend on a single link back to the mainland.
What the Executives & Local Have to Say
"General Luna is live," said Andrew Soper, Chief of Country Operations at World Mobile. "We put SuperWiFi where the people are - the market, the boardwalk, the church, the resort and several of those spots had no usable signal at all before this week. We started on an island because that is the hardest version of this problem in the Philippines, and solving it here is what gives us a path to the rest of the archipelago."
"Before SuperWiFi went live, our sari-sari store couldn't process digital payments or offer steady internet," said Maria Santos, local sari-sari store owner and eSari-Sari host in General Luna. "Now, tourists stay longer, local families have affordable Wi-Fi, and we generate extra income right from our shop."
What comes next
Following initial live rollouts in General Luna and Dapa, deployment is expanding into the Caraga Region (Butuan City) and Region 10 (Cagayan de Oro City). A key cornerstone of this expansion includes the deployment of the eLGU Hex at Magsaysay, executed in partnership with the Buhisan Political Family Franchise owner to extend digital civic infrastructure and local government services to the community. PR
