The DICT said the broadband plan of the Philippines will be ready for President Rodrigo Duterte’s signature by January 2017.
The National Broadband Plan (NBP) of the Philippines that will cost between P77 billion and P200 billion will be ready by January next year 2017.
This was announced by the newly-established Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on Thursday on the sidelines of the DICT Summit in Quezon City.
According to Information and Communications Secretary Rodolfo Salalima, the plan primarily consists of setting up an infrastructure, north to south, for the purpose of serving the needs of both the people and the government in the countryside.
To recall, during the first State of the Nation Address of President Rodrigo Duterte in July, he ordered the newly-formed DICT to come up with a plan on how to improve the internet service in the country.
On Thursday, Salalima noted the Department targets to submit the NBP to Malacañang and have it initialled by Duterte.
“Hopefully, we can submit it to the President by the first part of January, kasi pinapa-fast track ko na ‘yung detalye,” Salalima said.
The secretary added that in line with what has been agreed upon during previous consultations with other Cabinet officials, the decision is to go for north-to-south infrastructure development.
“Ito ‘yung sinasabi natin na: We put up the infrastructure from north to south, but the priority of the infrastructure is to serve government and people in the countryside na hindi naaabot ng telco service providers,” he noted.
“Now, because we have agreed with what option to use, we will put up the details of the specific costs so that once we are done with finalizing the plan, we will refer it back to the President – for the President to declare it as approved,” Salalima added.
Once the President has given the NBP the thumbs up, “then we will slowly implement,” he added.
Based on the timeline, it will basically take the government two to three years to implement the broadband plan.