MANILA - The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is expected to complete phases 2 and 3 of the National Fiber Backbone project by next year, an official said on Tuesday.

At the Fiber Connect APAC Conference 2024 organized by the Fiber Network Council APAC, DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said the next phases of the project will mostly cover Southern Luzon, Visayas and some parts of Mindanao.

Phase 1, meanwhile, is a 1,245-kilometer cable network from Laoag, Ilocos Norte to Roces, Quezon City, delivering an initial 600 Gbps optical spectrum capacity and covering 14 Luzon provinces.

“Biggest beneficiary are all the government agencies dahil lahat sila ngayon will be given broadband connectivity especially yung mga national agencies in the provinces. But at the same time yung mga LGU will also be connected,” Uy said.

He added that phases 4 up to 6 may be expedited because of the approved loan from the World Bank amounting to $287 million. The loan covers remote areas in Mindanao.

“If we rely on the GAA, the General Appropriations Act, on an annual basis, aabutin tayo ng 2028 and we’d probably not reach Mindanao yet,” said Uy.

Organizers of the conference are happy with the direction of the Philippine government towards pushing for the nationwide expansion of fiber connection. They said fiber is better than the legacy copper cable, especially with the increasing demand for more data.

“There’s gonna be huge bandwidth requirements. Data centers coming. Hyperscale coming. The type of fiber to be laid is gonna be low latency. Low latency means you can have easily smart cities, AI kicking in,” said Fouad Jafer, Conference Chairman.

Telco players are also investing heavily in fiber connections. Converge said that compared to copper wires, fiber is more sustainable as it requires less power.

“In terms of reliability, since copper heats up, the metal heats up, instability of the network, [fiber] it’s much more resilient,” said Paulo Martin Santos, Chief Network Transformation Officer, Converge.

Meanwhile, Uy is optimistic the National Fiber Backbone can be completed by 2026 so prices of fiber internet may also go down, which can then further fuel the growth of the Philippine economy.