DICT, NGCP, Transco sign ‘dark fiber’ deal for National Broadband Plan

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), and National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) sealed on Friday an agreement on covering the “dark fiber” assets to be used by the National Broadband Plan.

The tripartite agreement was signed by DICT Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr., NGCP chairman and CEO Anthony Almeda, and TransCo president Melvin Matibag at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City.

Under the agreement, the DICT received an “indefeasible right” of use and access in certain fiber optic cores, vacant lots, tower spaces, and related facilities o NGCP—the private sector concessionaire of the TransCo-owned power grid.

The dark fiber is 6,154 kilometers long and spans from Luzon to Mindanao.

Dark fiber is unused fiber-optic cables, which could be leased to individuals or companies to establish optical connections among locations, according to Webopedia.

The agreement came on the heels of several disagreements between NGCP and TransCo on who has the right to utilize the dark fiber.

“This is seven years in the making. Coming to this agreement, we had a lot of arguments and disagreements, but despite all of these things, we are all here together to sign the agreement,” Matibag said.

With the agreement in place, the period in the run-up to actual implementation of the national broadband plan will be shortened, DICT Undersecretary Dennis Villorente said, noting that the dark fiber assets will serve as the network backbone with the proposed Luzon bypass infrastructure.

As a result, the deployment of fiber optic cables will be accelerated, Villorente said.

“What is the significance of this more than 6,000 [kilometers] of fiber? About eight months ago we signed with Facebook itong 2 terabits per second bypassing infrastructure. It involves two landing stations, Poro Point and then Aurora,” Rio said.

In November 2017, the Philippine government teamed up with Facebook for the creation of a cable landing system. The goal was to improve internet speeds to as fast as 2 terabits per second by connecting the country to the rest of Asia and the United States starting 2019.

Under the partnership, Facebook will construct and operate a cable system that will land in Baler, Aurora and in Poro Point in San Fernando, La Union.

Facebook will also provide a spectrum equivalent to at least 2 million megabits per second or 2 terabits per second.

President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the development of a National Broadband Plan (NBP) to improve the internet speeds in the country during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) last year.

According to the DICT website, the National Broadband Plan would “give everyone the chance to reap the advantages of high-speed internet.” —VDS, GMA News