CONVERGE ICT Solution Inc. is expected to double its bandwidth capacity by 2025 as its two international submarine cable systems are set to be operational to address increasing demand.
Converge has eight international links with a total 5.1 terabits international bandwidth capacity and has points of presence in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and the US.
“By 2025, we will have an additional 10 terabits international bandwidth capacity as two international cable systems where we have capacity go on stream. These
are the Bifrost and SEA-H2X (South East Asia-Hainan-Hong Kong Express) cable systems,” said Benedicto Bulatao, president and chief operating officer of ComClark Network and Technology Corp, the parent company of Converge, said during his speech at the FiberConnect APAC Conference at Edsa Shangri-La Hotel.
Converge said it is well-equipped to leap into future technologies network which was built on pure fiber technology.
“We have laid out over 700,000 kilometers of total fiber assets with 8 million ports deployed. We have 20 landing stations nationwide,” Bulatao said.
Converge has reached more than 16 million homes passed, covering 62 percent of total Filipino households and also deployed over 2,000 satellites for areas that cannot be reached by fiber.
“Our international backbone is now one of the biggest in the country, running at less than 50 percent utilization. We designed it that way so in case of fiber outage or submarine earthquakes customer experience will not be affected,” Bulatao said.
The Bifrost cable system is a trans-Pacific cable system connecting Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, to the West Coast of North America. The consortium behind Bifrost includes Keppel Midgard Holdings Pte Ltd a subsidiary of Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation Limited (Keppel T&T), Meta, and PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin), a subsidiary of PT Telkom Indonesia.
Last September, SEA-H2X has landed in Bauang, La Union which aims to address the growing bandwidth requirements in the region.
The international submarine cable system has a design capacity of 160 terabits per second (Tbps), SEA-H2X aims to further increase the international capacity and reinforce the resiliency of its undersea fiber links within the Asia Pacific region.
This will provide superior connectivity to subscribers and businesses in the Philippines; it is seen to benefit institutions seen as large consumers of bandwidth such as outsourcing and offshore industry, including major contact centers, business process outsourcing providers, global financial institutions, and a host of other multinationals.
Converge has allocated P15 to 17 billion for capital expenditure this year bulk of which was allocated for the next expansion.
