CLARK FREEPORT – The cost of internet service will be considerably brought down with the opening of a new fiber optic domestic gateway next year.
So vowed Dennis Anthony H. Uy, president-CEO of Converge ICT Solutions, Inc. (Converge), at the media forum “Balitaan” organized by the Capampangan in Media, Inc. in cooperation with the Clark Development Corp. at the Bale Balita here last Friday.
“When I open the domestic gateway and no longer dependent on other carriers, I will bring down (the internet cost and substantially increase its speed) to a gigabit port to the home or 1 gig-per-second to the home capacity,” said Uy. Internet speed by service providers average only a mere 7-mbps (megabit per second).
He said the undersea cable will be finished in 18 months. As part of its five year, $1.8-billion capital expenditure which he announced last year, Uy said Converge is now rolling out a $400-million or 1.2-million quartz (lines) to consumers nationwide.
“These 1.2 million ports will be spread allover Luzon from Baguio to Pangasinan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan, then to Quezon, Cavite and Sorsogon,” he said. “From Matnog it will cross to Samar. From San Juan, Batangas to Mindoro to Panay then Cebu.”
The fiber optic-laying will be 1,800 kilometers of subsea cable with 20 landing stations throughout the country.Uy said the subsea cable is a $70-million project while the investment per line to the consumers is about $200.
“If that is 1.2 million ports at $200 optical distribution network, that will total to $240 million,” he said.
“What I am doing is fi nishing the whole infrastructure of the province and then go down to the towns and cities and then to the barangays,” he added. “So, this is bringing fiber to the homes in each province. This is what I do along the way.”
He said the Philippines is not yet even 10 percent fiber-connected as compared to China which is 80 percent connected to fiber technology.
“Our mobile subscription (subscriber base) is more than our population because most of us have two phones,” he said.
But he pointed out that the technology has evolved now because video is killing the bandwidth. “Streaming is there, cloud is here, so you need to have a digital highway to be able to deliver the platforms,” he said.
Uy said the solution is fiber optic technology: “Fiber is the key solution because copper is obsolete.”
Uy explained that copper needs amplifiers to boost its signal. “So, if you deliver from point A to point B in one kilometer, you will need amplifiers,” he said. “In fiber, from point A to point B, even with a hundred kilometers you don’t need anything, you don’t need power because it is light.”
“This is the technology, in one fiber you can even split it into 120 lights and that’s called DWDM technology (wavelength),” Uy said. “One wavelength can carry 400 gigabytes so the capacity is unlimited it is limitless because of this fiber technology.”
Uy said Converge uses 100 percent fiber now. Converge Head End or Data Center (servers) which is located in this freeport can now reach Cebu.
It can be recalled that in 2012, his freeport was the first to have a fiber optic command center. This after then-CDC president-CEO and now Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade challenged Uy to show a proof of concept (POC) with the CDC command center.
Uy said Converge was also instrumental in providing international media centers with live feed using fiber optic technology. This was realized during the APEC summit here when heads of states were shown on TV arriving at the airport one after the other.
Uy said he was also behind Papal Visit, ASEAN Summit and the upcoming SEA Games next month.
