PLDT, Globe start IP talks

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has started discussions with Globe Telecom Inc. for an Internet Protocol (IP) peering arrangement to improve the quality of Internet services in the country.

The telco giant said its officials have reached out to their Globe counterparts as early as Aug. 14 to open discussions on a bilateral IP peering agreement.

PLDT subsequently submitted a draft proposal based on internationally accepted peering practices, and is in active discussions with Globe.

“Our discussions with Globe are part of a broader effort of PLDT to improve Internet services in the country,” Ernesto Alberto, PLDT executive vice president for Enterprise and International Business and president and chief executive officer of ePLDT said.

“We are pursuing several parallel initiatives that taken together will help deliver an improved Internet experience for Filipinos,” he added.

Last month, PLDT entered into an agreement with the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to provide fiber optic facilities to the government hosted Internet exchange facility Philippine Open Internet Exchange (PHOpenIX).

Under the agreement, PLDT is also providing rack space in ePLDT’s VITRO Data Center facility to allow DOST to set up and operate its third PHOpenIX node.

The arrangement is expected to improve the resiliency of the government Internet exchange and allow PLDT subscribers to have better access to government websites hosted in PHOpenIX.

“Local peering will help improve the web experience of Internet users in the country by keeping local traffic local.  That is why we struck an agreement with DOST and why we are pursuing another one with Globe,” Alberto said.

Globe has been calling for IP peering among major Internet service providers in the country citing such is necessary to boost local Internet speed as the bulk of local traffic is currently being routed outside the country instead of getting routed directly, causing delays in transmission and leading to slow Internet connectivity.

About 95 percent of the web content accessed by Filipinos are sourced overseas, primarily North America.

Filipinos also like to access multimedia content, particularly high-definition streaming video, which are more bandwidth-heavy than other web traffic.

As a result, the required international cable capacity to carry the growing multimedia traffic from abroad is rising rapidly.

To address the challenge, PLDT is investing in additional international cable capacity to stay ahead  and cater to the growing demand for multimedia content.

The telco firm is also storing or “caching” in its data centers in the country as much popular overseas web content as possible.

The PLDT Group currently operates six data center facilities with a total capacity of over 3,200 racks.

By the first-half of next year, two more data centers will be operational to bring the group’s total capacity to over 8,000 racks.

“Local caching really helps, but this has limits. A lot of the most sought-after Internet content is very dynamic.  Like, you cannot locally cache news sites or secure web sites such as those of banks and other financial institutions,” Alberto said.

In another parallel effort to improve the Internet experience of its customers, PLDT is rolling out more domestic fiber optic cable facilities for use in both backbone transmission and distribution to the home or office.

PLDT’s wireless subsidiaries Smart Communications and Sun Cellular are also rolling high-speed 3G and 4G/LTE facilities for improved coverage and quality of mobile and wireless broadband services.

“Internet infrastructure has many ‘moving parts’.  We have to undertake various simultaneous initiatives to make changes that will really benefit our customers and the public,” Alberto said.