Speaker: Faster internet speed expected next year

MANILA, Philippines — With some P1.5 billion in budget infused for the national broadband project (NBP) for 2023, Speaker Martin Romualdez is confident that the country will see faster internet speed next year.

According to Romualdez, he is expecting the country’s internet speed to go up a “notch” once the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) implements its NBP that has been allocated P1.5 billion in the proposed 2023 national budget.

He said the allocation for the NBP is part of the P77-billion institutional amendments made by the lower chamber to augment the budget for education, health, transportation and other critical social services.

“And the internet is a critical social service nowadays, as it is deeply entrenched in the way we live. We use the internet for education, for delivering and availing social services, for our businesses and for almost every facet of our lives,” he noted.

For his part, Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Zaldy Co, chairman of the House committee on appropriations, pointed out that the P1.5 billion allocated for the NBP “will go a long way in jumpstarting the program that is envisioned to provide the backbone in providing internet to all government agencies nationwide.”

“We all know that many areas in our country still do not have internet connection, especially those in far-flung areas. And we can now use the bandwidth given by Facebook once the DICT conducts the rollout of national broadband infrastructure, which will now be finally funded,” he added.

Co was referring to an earlier agreement forged by DICT, Facebook and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority in which Facebook agreed to provide the Philippine government with spectrum equivalent to at least two million megabits per second once the internet infrastructure has been established.