Gov’t agrees to piggyback on NGCP line for broadband plan

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) has mutually agreed with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to move forward on the use of available fiber optic capacity in the government’s National Broadband Program (NBP).

In a statement, the grid operator said DICT OIC Undersecretary Eliseo Rio recently met with NGCP president and CEO Henry Sy, Jr. and expressed the agency’s commitment to partner with NGCP on the use of transmission facilities as backbone for the NBP for the duration of its concession agreement.

“The core of the matter is who owns the dark fiber of NGCP/ TransCo. When it is turned over to TransCo, whatever agreement was done with NGCP may be modified, changed, or reviewed by TransCo,” Rio said.

DICT’s commitment follows NGCP’s earlier pronouncement that it is willing to enter into a bilateral agreement with the government for the lease of its available fiber optic capacity for use of third parties at no cost.

“NGCP will enter into the agreement up to the life of its concession, which is until 2034, provided that in the event that the concession is extended, the bilateral agreement will also be extended,” it said.

Republic Act (RA) 9511 grants NGCP a franchise to operate the country’s transmission network across the three main islands and allows it to to engage in any related business which maximizes the utilization of its assets such as, but not limited to, telecommunications system.

Through the 25-year concession agreement, NGCP operates about 5,000 to 10,000 fiber optic cables of existing fiber optic facilities that run from Luzon to Mindanao for internal communication purposes.

Earlier, the grid operator maintained that it can legally enter into a bilateral agreement with government without

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