DICT bids out contract to upgrade fiber network
The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is spending P68.72 million to upgrade the government’s fiber cable system in order to improve the delivery of internet services in the country.
In a public notice, the DICT said it was looking for a contractor that can beef up the optical transport network (OTN) capacity of the National Fiber Backbone (NFB).
OTN capacity refers to the amount of data that can be transmitted via a fiber cable system. Increasing this will allow faster delivery of internet services.
The NFB, meanwhile, is a government-owned network that facilitates the delivery of data across the country.
The DICT, in the bidding documents it issued, said the winning bidder must be able to provide 100GE (gigabit ethernet) and 40GE services, among others.
In simple terms, these services enable quick internet connectivity of 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) and 40 Gbps.
With 100 Gbps, a user can download about 20,000 songs in one second and transfer 1,000 high-quality photos in just 0.01 second.
High-speed internet
The DICT will conduct a pre-bid conference on April 10. Bids must be submitted on or before April 23.
Last year, the government launched the first phase of NFB. It spans 1,245 kilometers (km) and connects 14 provinces from Laoag, Ilocos Norte to Quezon City.
The NFB phase 1 supports 3,000 free Wi-Fi sites, providing internet connectivity to about 750,000 residents in the Ilocos region, Central Luzon and Metro Manila.
The DICT is set to open within the first half of this year two more phases of the fiber system, which are aimed at improving internet access in southern Luzon and some parts of the Visayas and Mindanao.
In total, NFB has six phases, which the government intends to complete by next year. Once finished, internet penetration is expected to increase to 65 percent from the current 33 percent.
