LEADING Philippine fiber internet provider Converge ICT Solutions Inc. has inaugurated the site for its cable landing station (CLS) in Davao for the Philippine branch of the Bifrost Cable System, which will deliver much-needed internet capacity, redundancy and reliability between the Asia-Pacific region and North America.
“We are breaking ground on a significant infrastructure that will bring about greater internet speeds and an overall better digital experience for Filipinos in the future. The Philippine branch of the Bifrost Cable System will be landing here in Davao and as such, we’ll be bringing in the capacity and bandwidth of Bifrost to our domestic networks,” said Converge chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder Dennis Anthony Uy during the ceremonial groundbreaking and time capsule laying of the cable landing facility site in Talomo district, Davao on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023.
The 745-square-meter, one-story facility will be the first fully owned and operated cable landing station of Converge in the Philippines. The cable landing station sits on an 8,000-square-meter lot.
The Bifrost cable system is a new trans-Pacific cable system connecting Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines to the West Coast of North America. The consortium behind Bifrost includes Keppel Midgard Holdings Pte. Ltd., a subsidiary of Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation Limited (Keppel T&T), Meta and PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin), a subsidiary of PT Telkom Indonesia.
The infrastructure is envisioned to support the booming digital connectivity needs of the Asia-Pacific region and provide a critical, direct link with North America.
To recall, Converge and Singapore-based Keppel Midgard Holdings Pte. Ltd. signed an agreement granting Converge one fiber pair in the trunk of the Bifrost Cable System. The system is expected to be completed in 2024.
“Our investment in this land-based infrastructure is in line with our goal to make the Philippines a digital hub in Asia. Our country is in a prime location in the center of the region for intra- and inter-Asian connectivity. That’s why we are investing in different submarine cables. This will not only boost the company’s international bandwidth capacity, but for the Philippines, it will mean redundancy and diversity in network infrastructure,” said Converge chief operating officer Jesus Romero.
Converge’s goal is to make the vital interconnection between the submarine network with the domestic terrestrial network.
Submarine cables and their connections to terrestrial networks enable real-time access to business and consumer applications, social media, streaming video, websites and many other bandwidth-intensive services.
Before the groundbreaking ceremony in Davao, Uy and Keppel T&T CEO Thomas Pang made a courtesy call to Malacañang, showcasing strengthened business ties between Keppel and Converge. (PR)