THE Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said it was optimistic that the Philippines would be among the top three nations in Southeast Asia with the fastest internet connectivity when the term of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ends in 2028.
Communications Secretary Ivan John Uy reported during the Build Better More Infrastructure Forum at the New Clark City over the weekend that internet speed in the Philippines has climbed from 9th to 6th among Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) members.
“We were able to do this in less than two years, and we deemed that if we continue in this trajectory of 14 percent increase in our index in the past years, I am hoping that in 2028, we could be, probably, in the top three in Asean, assuming that we continue to get funding,” Uy said.
He attributed the country’s current overall internet penetration of 73.6 percent to the DICT’s Common Tower Policy, which expedited the setup of third-party internet service providers.
Uy added that phase 1 of the national fiber backbone, linking 14 provinces, was in full swing, covering 1,245 kilometers from Laoag, Ilocos Norte to Quezon City.
Succeeding phases of the project that will lay down 6,300 kilometers of fiber optic cables will be implemented in the coming months.
Uy said the Broadband ng Masa Program will provide the national fiber backbone and middle-mile connectivity while the Free Public Internet Access Program will give the public free and secure internet connectivity via its 13,462 sites nationwide.
“These free public internet access sites are serving around 10 million people so far,” he said.
“We need to double what we are putting up because we are the ones who want to catch up (with the rest of the Asean),” Uy added.
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