PLDT to spend Php86 million to double bandwidth capacity

In keeping with the steady rise of demand for high-speed broadband internet in the country, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) has released a statement that the telco is planning to invest $2M to upgrade the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) cable system 100 Gigabit standards, increasing the bandwidth capacity by 200% in the process.

Back in 2007, PLDT is one of 19 multinational parties that signed up to invest on a 20,000-kilometer, high-bandwidth fiber optic submarine cable that will connect South East Asia regions to America.

The trans-Pacific link, which is later dubbed as the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) Cable System, has a total cost of USD500PHP 29,343INR 42,375EUR 476CNY 3,639 million, of which 10% came from the MVP-led telco, making them the biggest investor of the multinational project.

To date, PLDT has a total of four international cable systems, two of which, the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) and Japan-US Cable Network (JUCN), are already upgraded to 100G, while the Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) is currently being upgraded to the said standard.

“Attuning to globalization and meeting world standards, we’ve readied our network not only in our domestic capacity but also in our international links to better future-proof PLDT in the foreseen surge of more intensive and bandwidth-hungry services, particularly to and from the US,”

– Roland Pena, PLDT Technology Head

Upon completion, the Pangilinan-led telco will have an additional 15,000 kilometers of new fiber optic assets by the end of this year. Moreover, PLDT is also planning to spend an estimated Php1B to further extend their reach to almost 100,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables which, according to the company, is four times more than what the competition has to offer.

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