PBBM admin eyes to complete national broadband connectivity by 2026

Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Jeffrey Dy explained in a news forum in Quezon City on Saturday that the Marcos administration has two connectivity projects — Free Wi-Fi and the National Fiber Backbone. (Pixabay photo)

MANILA – The Marcos administration is targeting to achieve total national fiber backbone connectivity by 2026, along with its efforts to provide free Wi-Fi connections to all villages, and is inviting investors to participate in the administration’s Internet connectivity projects.

Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Jeffrey Dy explained in a news forum in Quezon City on Saturday that the Marcos administration has two connectivity projects — Free Wi-Fi and the National Fiber Backbone.

“The National Fiber Backbone is now 70 percent (accomplished) in Luzon. Ang target is by 2026 matapos natin (The target is we finish in 2026) from North Luzon to Mindanao and hopefully we are also inviting investors so that they can establish additional cable landing stations off the tip of Mindanao as a redundancy kasi (because) most of our cable landing stations are actually concentrated in Luzon and then there are a few in Visayas,” Dy said.

The national program involves establishing the government’s fiber backbone, a secondary platform in addition to those provided by commercial fiber laid out by public telecommunication entities, covering 28,000 kilometers of fiber in the entire country.

With 70 percent completed in Luzon, the DICT will be starting with Phases Two and Three, with procurement activities being undertaken this year and next year to cover Visayas and Mindanao, according to Dy.

With regard to the free Wi-Fi, Dy said that the target is to put up 110,000 sites by the end of 2026 or by the middle of 2027.

The project will cost approximately PHP50 billion.

The Free Wi-Fi for All project is a law that mandates the DICT to provide free Wi-Fi to public places including parks, municipal halls, public schools, state universities and colleges and other facilities, Dy said.

Earlier this week, the DICT, along with the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, launched the very-small-aperture terminal and Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDA) for 438 sites.

Dy sad the proponents eye to establish this year more than 8,000 free Wi-Fi sites that will cover GIDA villages.

 (PNA/PND)