PLDT taps US firm for P1.3-B upgrade

MANILA, Philippines - Dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. has tapped US-based network specialist Ciena Corp. to undertake a P1.3-billion project that would increase the capacity and flexibility of the utility firm’s vast and extensive network in the country.

PLDT president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno said in a press conference that the project is part of the company’s P67-billion network upgrade and modernization program that was launched last year.

“This is part of the P67-billion modernization program that was laid down last year,” Nazareno stressed.

The project would increase the capacity and service flexibility of PLDT’s domestic fiber optic network (DFON) through the deployment of Ciena’s coherent 100 gigabites (100G) per second technology and optical transport network (OTN) switching solutions.

As the first 100G network in the Philippines, he pointed out that this would put the country at par with that of Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea.

He said the upgrade would complete PLDT’s core network modernization program and support the delivery of next-generation services to customers such as fiber-to-the-home, fiber-to-the-building, LTE/4G, IPTV, and triple pay services.

“As the largest service provider in the Philippines, it is critical that we invest in proven, industry-leading infrastructure that ensures long term customer satisfaction. This reliable infrastructure will not only benefit the customers of PLDT but also the subscribers of our cellular subsidiaries, Smart Communications and Sun Cellular,” he added.

He said the project covering PLDT’s 50,000 kilometers of fiber optic nationwide is expected to be completed by November.

Anthony MacLachlan, Ciena vice president and general manager for Asia Pacific, said the company’s vision is to provide a network architecture that enables service providers to create more intelligent networks that can be programmed to adapt to application needs, support dynamic customer requirements, and quickly roll-out new services.

With this regional and long-haul domestic network upgrade, he explained that PLDT would become the first network operator in the Philippines to deploy 100G technology allowing it to extract more capacity out of existing fiber and support the delivery of high-bandwidth services and applications.

“PLDT’s deployment of 100G in its domestic network puts the Philippines in a leadership position in Asia-pacific, amongst only a handful of other countries in the region to do so thus far,” he added.