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PLDT gearing up to ‘fully fiberize’ Cauayan, Isabela


Cauayan City in Isabela is now gearing up to be "fully fiberized" to improve the connectivity of the area, its partner PLDT Inc. said Tuesday.

In a statement, PLDT said it currently rolling out its infrastructure network in Cauayan for the area to be developed into one of the first smart cities in the Philippines.

"PLDT is currently rolling out its fiber-powered fixed broadband network across Cauayan to serve customers with internet service speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second," the statement read.

Its main competitor Globe Telecom Inc. on Monday said fifth-generation (5G) technology is optimal for the Philippines, given the geographical limitations to putting up fiber optic cables.

According to PLDT, its subsidiary Smart Communications Inc. is also set to upgrade existing cell sites across Cauayan to provide fourth-generation (4G) of long-term evolution (LTE) mobile data services in the area.

PLDT said the shift to being one of the Philippines' first smart cities started for Cauayan in 2015, when the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) bared the program.

"At the time, it was only Cauayan that really embraced this smart city initiative," Cauayan Mayor Bernardo Dy said.

"Four years later, the city has its own citizen app, a unified electronic payment system across the town, and free wifi in its barangays to help the local government deliver its services to citizens more efficiently," he added.

PLDT Inc. in April inked a multi-million dollar contract with global technology firm Cisco to upgrade its transport infrastructure into a fully 5G-ready network.

Under the agreement, Cisco will deploy technology to design and build infrastructure utilizing PLDT's existing fiber network which then covered 244,000 kilometers across the Philippines. —LDF, GMA News

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