By Lenie Lectura
The Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) of the Department of Science and Technology wants to utilize the fiber-optic cable network of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) to link and provide Internet service to each government agency in the country.
ICTO, the government’s lead agency on ICT and related matters, had approached the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to facilitate a dialogue with NGCP on the matter.
“Henry Sy Jr. is fully supportive of this. In fact, he has designated one of his personnel to coordinate with us, with ICTO,” ERC Commissioner Jose Vicente Salazar said.
NGCP is a privately owned corporation in charge of operating, maintaining and developing the country’s power grid. It transmits high-voltage electricity through “power superhighways” that include the interconnected system of transmission lines, towers, substations and related assets.
The consortium, which holds the 25-year concession contract to operate the country’s power-transmission network, is comprised of Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp., also led by Sy Jr.; Calaca High Power Corp. led by Robert Coyiuto Jr.; and the State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC) as technical partner.
The ERC chief said a meeting with Sy was held recently.
“We discussed a lot of things, including the implementation of certain initiatives which include this,” Salazar said.
“Basically, ICTO is undertaking this project. We will just be assisting ICTO so it can discuss with NGCP this matter. The transmission facilities are still owned by the government and these can be utilized without affecting the operations of NGCP,” Salazar said.
Details of the project are still being finalized, but Salazar said that “it’s just a matter of expanding it since ICTO has already started this in some areas. It’s just a matter of utilizing the resources by linking the government offices with that of the NGCP grid to provide high-speed Internet.”
The ERC chief said that any interconnection link “would no longer pass through any of the facilities of the telcos [telecommunication companies],” and that this project is also being coordinated with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
“As a result, the telcos would step up in providing better Internet service to their customers. The share of the country’s penetration rate would also be higher,” Salazar said.
The Internet speed in the Philippines is said to be the second slowest in Asia. Also, the country’s Long-Term Evolution (LTE) speed has an average coverage of 43 percent and an average LTE download speed of 6 Mbps. The global average speed is now 13.