Remote towns, NCR hospitals get free internet access – DICT

MANILA, Philippines — At least 587 isolated communities will benefit from free internet for a year under a new project developed by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

In a series of invitations to bid, the DICT said it has allocated as much as P197.21 million for the delivery of free WiFi to geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAs) and hospitals in Metro Manila.

The larger budget of P179.49 million will be spent on the provision of internet access using low earth orbit satellites for 587 GIDAs across the archipelago.

The DICT identified 396 towns in Luzon and 191 in Visayas and Mindanao as beneficiaries. The deal covers internet service for up to 365 days, and the contractor must be able to get it online in 30 days from receipt of the notice to proceed.

Since the beneficiary towns are in isolated areas like islands and mountains, the DICT is limiting bids to internet service providers with satellite capability. Per location, the service must turn in a download bandwidth of at least 100 Mbps.

Likewise, the provider must allocate a minimum of two TB monthly per location, and latency — the speed by which data is transferred — must only reach 60 milliseconds.

The DICT will hold a pre-bid conference on July 14, while submissions will be closed and bids will be opened on July 27.

On top of this, the DICT is spending P17.72 million for the provision of internet access in Metro Manila hospitals using fiber optics.

The project covers 52 hospitals in Metro Manila, including the Philippine General Hospital, Philippine Heart Center and Philippine Orthopedic Center. The contractor will be tasked to keep the service up for 365 days similar to the GIDA initiative.

Specifically, the service must sustain a minimum download bandwidth of 20 Mbps. Data must be unlimited, with latency capped at just 50 ms.

The DICT will close the bidding and open the proposals on July 15, with the provider granted up to 120 days from receipt of notice to proceed to connect all hospitals.

Funding for both projects will come from the special account in the general fund intended for the Free Public Internet Access Program, also known as the free WiFi project.