DICT taps Singapore firm for rollout of national fiber optic cable network

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has inked a partnership with HyalRoute Group’s subsidiary Philippine Fiber Optic Cable Network Ltd. Inc. (PFOCN) for a billion-dollar fiber network investment.

The parties signed last week a memorandum of agreement aimed at strengthening the network connectivity of the Philippines through PFOCN’s fiber optic cable network investment valued from $1 billion to $2 billion and which will be implemented in various phases between 2019 to 2028.

Under the agreement, the DICT will provide assistance to PFOCN in procuring the needed permits and licenses for the successful implementation of the investment.

“There is a need for more fiber optic cables in this country, thus this partnership will greatly improve our telecommunication services. We can now have cable networks that anybody can use and this jives with our National Broadband Plan,” Information and Communications Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio said.

Rio said the fiber optic cable rollout through the partnership would also form part of the DICT’s free public WiFi network to reach the unserved and underserved areas in the country.

Fiber optic cables, he said, would provide greater bandwidth capacity and would allow for faster speeds with wider range.

Once established, PFOCN’s fiber optic cable network will become the new “shared network infostructure in the Philippines,” according to the DICT.

HyalRoute is a Singapore-based company regarded as the leading provider of shared communication fiber network in emerging Asia.

“We believe this investment project will greatly improve the status of communication infrastructure, particularly fiber network, while improving broadband penetration rate and speed to meet the needs of the general public,” HyalRoute chairman Huang Xinglong said.