Quick-start broadband plan seen completed next month — DICT

THE DEPARTMENT of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) could put together a detailed plan to implement the national broadband project by next month, with a target of having infrastructure up and running in a year’s time by utilizing existing assets of the government.

DICT Secretary Rodolfo A. Salalima said yesterday that President Rodrigo R. Duterte approved the establishment of a national broadband system on March 6, but left it to the agency to decide on the details and implementation of the project.

“The plan was approved first week of March. By next month, we could already come up with the details and the partners that we’re considering. At least the crystallized plan-who will be our possible partners, the components, the location where to put it. Give us a month and then we’ll start,” Mr. Salalima said in a chance interview on Tuesday.

“The President and the Cabinet approved the principle but how to implement it, and the details, we will decide,” he added.

The newly-created department submitted the proposal to the President in February, which contained Mr. Salalima’s recommendation to put up a “working physical infrastructure” — which the government intends to use to reach parts of the countryside not serviced by commercial telcos. Since the government will build and manage the network, it could allow private companies to lease the network to serve far-flung or ‘missionary’ areas.

Since the department is eyeing a “hybrid” system, aside from renting out the infrastructure to telco operators, the “services of the telcos, including their physical components, may also be tapped as part of that broadband plan, whatever will be more cost-efficient for the government.”

The department expects a national broadband system to be up and running within the term of the President which ends in 2022 but Mr. Salalima said yesterday that since the DICT is looking to use existing government assets like the fiber optic cable network of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), in a year, they may be able to already put up a working infrastructure.

“We are talking now with possible partners for the broadband, talking to a lot of companies, service providers, equipment suppliers and possibly funders too. There’s nothing definite yet whether we’ll partner with a local or foreign company but we have talked a lot,” Mr. Salalima said. —