Broadband Internet pioneer allots P2 B for program

Broadband Internet pioneer Meridian Telekoms, Inc. is spending P2 billion between now and next year as it embarks on the first phase of an ambitious program aimed at saturating Metro Manila and key cities in the country with wireless broadband facilities and services — deemed as the key to fully unlocking the power of the Internet.

In an interview with The STAR, Meridian president Rene dos Remedios said the company intends to first focus on small and medium enterprises as well as some big businesses. "But our eventual goal is to make broadband services available to the households," he said.

In other countries, households are now enjoying the benefits of broadband connections, which allows them to be online fast. "Broadband will really make a difference in how people work," Dos Remedios said, adding that they can offer broadband service to consumers in two years’ time, which is the second phase of Meridian’s infrastructure program. This phase, he said, will cost billions of dollars.

Meridian has already entered into a partnership with Eastern Telecommunications Phils, Inc. (ETPI) for the provision of bandwidth to the global Internet backbone. The deal provides for ETPI to deliver Internet bandwidth of up to 45 megabits per second to Meridian to support the latter’s nationwide rollout of wireless broadband Internet services all over the country.

ETPI chief operating officer Angelo Molato noted that both ETPI and Meridian are working to increase the use of broadband Internet access services in the Philippines. "This helps fuel the growth of Internet as a powerful business tool, enhancing productivity and saving cost. With the speed that broadband access provides, new applications using the Internet now become more practical to use and implement," Molato said.

Meridian recently launched its wireless broadband Internet service, the first to do so on commercial basis in the country. This service allows wireless broadband last mile access to the Internet using the same technology used by mobile phone companies.

"We have proven that this technology works in the Philippines. We have tested this in the densest locations and the harshest weather conditions. As our service requires the use of heavy bandwidth and very reliable last mile access, we have chosen to partner with ETPI to provide us with the gateway to the global Internet," Dos Remedios said.

ETPI in August launched its ADSL and Gigabit broadband Internet services, also the first in the country to launch such services on a commercial basis. ETPI vice president and internet business unit head Joevel Rivera disclosed that since its launching, the company had already signed up nearly 50 top corporate companies to use the service.

"ETPI and Meridian share the view that a collaborative effort will lead to a faster build-up of the local broadband infrastructure that will then support the growing local Internet market. After all, there is enough demand in the market for everybody to share," Rivera noted.

The idea of wireless broadband started in the early 90s when as a partner in Micro-D (now MDi) which was into network systems integration, Dos Remedios realized that the problem in deploying network lies in connectivity.

It was only at the end of last year when he finally decided to realize his dream. "It has always been an area which was underserved and with tremendous growth potential. A reliable and fast means of transporting Internet data is the foundation in which all telecommunication services will be built in the future," he told The STAR.