PLDT, Converge to expand, upgrade internet services

MANILA, Philippines — A day after Starlink announced its entry in the Philippines, broadband providers PLDT Inc. and Converge ICT Solutions Inc. have committed to scale up the reliability of their underwater cable systems to improve internet services.

Converge yesterday announced that it started the construction for the cable landing station of the Bifrost Cable System in Davao City.

Spanning 745 sqm, the facility will be owned and operated by Converge and will also function as the Philippine gateway for Bifrost, an international cable system that would run from Singapore to North America.

Converge chief operations officer Jesus Romero said Bifrost has the potential to turn the country into a digital hub in Asia. Through Bifrost, Converge hopes to boost its international capacity to facilitate data exchange, benefitting subscribers who would be provided with real-time access to apps and websites based abroad.

In 2021 Converge signed a deal with Singapore-based Keppel Midgard Holdings Pte. Ltd. to link to Bifrost. The firm owned by billionaire Dennis Anthony Uy will invest P5 billion to hook up to the subsea cable system that is scheduled to be completed by 2024.

With a cable landing station in Davao City, Converge will be allowed access to two international links–one in Singapore, the other in North America–boosting its data capacity by 15 terabits per second each way.

“This will not only boost the company’s international bandwidth capacity, but for the Philippines it will mean redundancy and diversity in network infrastructure,” Romero said.

On the other hand, PLDT announced that it plans to invest in new cable systems in the next five years with the goal of hitting petabit levels in terms of international capacity.

As reported by The STAR last year, PLDT wants to persuade tech giants like Meta to set up data facilities in the Philippines. To do this, however, the Pangilinan-led telco would have to raise its international capacity first to prepare its backbone for the data requirements needed by these tech investors.

PLDT expects its data capacity to surpass 100 terabits per second with the Asia Direct Cable–an international cable system traversing East and Southeast Asia–set to be completed by the end of this year. Further, PLDT will build the $80 million Apricot Cable System that would add 35 terabits per second once activated by 2025.

Apart from this, PLDT has spent for the expansion of its data centers and fiber footprint, which now runs to more than 1.09 million kilometers, to build up its infrastructure network.