The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is considering to partner with the private sector for the rollout of the P3-billion broadband project in provinces and municipalities nationwide.
Philip Varilla, DICT assistant secretary, said at a business forum organized by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines the department is coordinating with the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center to package some of the PPP projects to expedite the rollout of broadband in the provinces.
“We would like to partner (private sector) so we can fast-track the rollout of digitalization throughout the country basically in the provinces and municipalities,” he said.
Aside from this, DICT is on track to finish the first phase of the National Broadband Plan (NBP) by next year. This is currently 74 percent complete.
The first phase of NBP involves the rollout of fiber backbone network from Laoag to Quezon City through accessing the dark fiber provided by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines which will improve broadband capacity to 2 terabits per second.
NBP Phase 1 also involves activating 28 nodes of the national fiber backbone located in 12 provinces in Luzon.
The NBP shall provide faster, efficient and equitable broadband connectivity nationwide including the geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas.
As of August this year, DICT has provided high speed broadband connection to 981 government offices and agencies in 13 provinces in different regions.
NBP Phase 2 is going to coverfrom Clark to Subic, Region 4 and will further expand in the north, according to Varilla.
“There is Phase 3, that will connect up to Samar and then other phases will cover Visayas and Mindanao. We hope to complete the backbone by 2025, if the budget will be given to us,” he added.
The project cost for Phase 2 is around P300 million while Phase 3 is about P1.5 billion —connecting the whole country just the backbone side.
