Converge to make final landing for P6 billion domestic submarine cable

MANILA, Philippines — Fiber broadband provider Converge ICT Solutions Inc. is completing this month its P6-billion domestic submarine cable project that connects the country’s major islands from Luzon to Visayas and Mindanao to the company’s national fiber backbone.

Converge said the 1,800-kilometer subsea cable would make its final landing in Coron, Palawan tomorrow. (Oct. 31)

“We’re pleased to announce the completion of our domestic network’s primary and secondary routes which span the entirety of the country,” Converge chief executive officer Dennis Anthony Uy said.

“Not only does this ensure availability of the service nationwide, but with the network design, we’re assured to have a resilient backbone that’s able to carry the tremendous data traffic driven by our million-plus customers,” he said.

Converge said the subsea cables that connect to its domestic backbone are laid out in a way that there is redundancy in the network, assuring service availability even in the case of fiber cuts.

“More than the interconnection of the major islands, we’ve achieved a high level of resiliency in the network by ‘closing’ the loops on our primary and secondary routes,” Uy said.

Converge interconnected Visayas and Mindanao during the first phase of its domestic subsea backbone rollout, which landed in Bogo, Cebu and Cagayan de Oro.

Under the second phase, it re-entered Visayas through Roxas City, Capiz in Panay Island and Mindanao through Buenavista, Agusan del Norte, closing the loops in its network.

Converge said this is supported by 20 cable landing stations across the archipelago.

In terms of capacity, the company said it makes use of 48-fiber core optical cables running on 400G and 800G technology, which essentially boost network’s capacity to push huge amounts of data throughout the length of the cable.

“All these features on the network design and technology simply mean the connection on our network is more stable, more resilient, and less prone to failure or outages – wherever you are in the country,” Converge chief operations officer Jesus Romero said.

Through its continuing expansion, Converge said it is ready to connect more unserved and underserved areas in the country.

The company said it on track to meet its target of covering 55 percent of Philippine households by 2025.

As of end-July, its fiber backbone has already reached over 80,500 kilometers.

The network of Converge in the first half  passed more than 8.3 million homes, while household coverage stood at 32.5 percent of all households in the country.