THE cost of building a national broadband backbone is expected to go down by as much as three quarters to P20 billion from P77 billion, thanks to a tripartite agreement for the use of existing, but unused infrastructure, a Cabinet official said.
While it is not yet the final cost of the National Broadband Network, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Acting Secretary Eliseo M. Rio noted his group expects to see savings of as much as P57 billion from building the said Internet backbone.
Rio said this savings will come from the fact that his group now has access to the dark-fiber facilities of National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and National Transmission Corp. (Transco).
“Now that we have secured access to the facilities of NGCP and Transco, a big chunk of the budget will have to be cut. Our estimate is that only P20 billion will be needed for the National Broadband Network,” he said in a chance interview.
The tripartite agreement was signed about two weeks ago.
Under the deal, the government secured the right to use and/or access in certain spare fiber-optic cores (FOCs), vacant lots, tower spaces and related facilities of the NGCP as backbone for the National Broadband Plan (NBP).
Dark fiber refers to spare fiber-optic cables, from which data flows in an out. Combined, two energy companies’ dark-fiber facilities span 6,154 kilometers across Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.
Rio noted the government is still working on the feasibility study of the NBP and will continue to do so until 2018.
“For 2018, we will be finishing the feasibility study for the plan. We can secure budget for the NBP by 2019,” he said.
The NBP will analyze existing and planned government and private-sector deployment, and address supply-and-demand gaps by recommending policy and nonpolicy related actions. The plan will also provide detailed physical targets and strategies to effect nationwide broadband deployment and widespread use.
After crafting the plan, the government will pursue the construction of a National Broadband Network, which will include a mixture of several Internet connectivity, technologies, such as fixed line and mobile data, among others.
The creation of such a network started during the time of then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but was shelved due to corruption issues.
The Philippines is one of the few countries in the region where the government has yet to fully engage in investing in telco infrastructure.
Neighboring countries in the Asean have already started to implement national broadband plans, earmarking billions of dollars to develop a government-owned backbone for the information superhighway.
In Thailand, for example, the government has invested $114 million to improve the Internet service or availability. The fund is part of Bangkok’s economic policy.
Malaysia has now spent a total of $4.5 billion over a 10-year period to lay fiber-optic lines to every home in the country’s urban area.
With Sharmaine O. Paden