Third major telecom player DITO Telecommunity Corp. has signed an agreement with the League of Municipalities (LMP) to provide a dedicated nationwide fiber network to directly connect the different municipalities of the country.
Under the agreement, DITO will deliver fast, upgraded and reliable services to public areas of the respective barangays, including the schools and other key institutions.
Adel Tamano, DITO chief administrative officer, said this allows every municipality to provide beyond the standard free WIFI hotspots.
“The effort significantly affords Filipinos even in the smallest of municipalities the advanced applications that can be driven through the private network such as direct video for conferencing or security, public broadcast exchange, e-Education, e-Medicine, e-Permits, Internet of Things, IP PBX, VoIP, among other things, to better live-up to the promise of delivering the kind of connectedness and community that Filipinos long for,” he said.
“The mayors have committed to ensure ease of doing business in their respective municipalities to drive the extensive DITO roll-out, in exchange, DITO will enable better collaboration and communication in the future through connectivity for all,” added Tamano.
Narvacan, Ilocos Sur Mayor Luis “Chavit” Singson, LMP president, said many municipalities have limited internet services because of their low population.
“With the commitment of DITO to connect all the municipalities via a dedicated fiber line, we are on the verge of something big, benefiting specially those in out-of-reach places like the farmers, the workers at the grass roots level who can now offer their local produce and services more immediately to the rest of the country or to the world, boosting greatly local economy up to the municipality level,” Singson said.
“In other developed countries, governments already have their own private networks, and in the Philippines there have been several attempts, but now with this DITO-supported initiative, and the support of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, and the Office of the President, our municipalities will be connected real time through its own private network,” added Singson.
DITO, formerly known as Mindanao Islamic Telephone Co. Inc., is a consortium of Udenna Corp., Chelsea Logistics and Infrastructure, and China Telecommunications Corp.
The company is set to start commercial operation in the first half this year, with commitment to deliver a minimum internet speed of 27 megabits per second in the first year of operation.
DITO is investing P279 billion in five years of operation, with commitment to cover 37 percent of the national population in its initial year and gradually increasing its coverage to 84 percent of the population by the fifth year of operation.
