NorthTelecom has recently entered into an agreement with a Philippine-based Public Telecommunications Entity (PTE) to supply satellite ground hardware, space segment capacity, and internet bandwidth for the Philippine rural market, especially the unserved and underserved areas.
The capacity requirement for the 3-year project is estimated to be around 1.5 to 2 transponders and the number of remote terminals is expected to reach 1,000 units by the end of the period. The primary objective of the project is to connect the rural market segments without internet access, including the Local Government Units (LGUs), academe, business establishments and general public.
NorthTelecom will use the latest technology from its vendor-partner for the ground equipment and its teleport in Singapore and Malaysia to serve the Philippine market. For large-scale Virtual Private Network (VPN) requirements of the public and private sectors, the provisioning of a Hub is seriously under consideration.
“This rollout would be one of the largest to take place in the Philippines for VSAT and this partnership will bring technology to people who have yet to experience an always-on access to the internet and giving them the ability to keep abreast with their friends and families throughout the world,” said Richard Alwani, Senior Sales Director Asia & Pacific NorthTelecom.
NorthTelecom CTO / Managing Director Asia & Pacific, Mahdi Mehrabi, added: “We are very thrilled to be one of the First global service provider to make an enhanced VSAT partnership in the Philippines and addressing the digital gap in one of the fast growing market in Asia. Due to geographical constraints, there are still areas which can only be reached via satellite connectivity. As an archipelago of about 7,100 islands, with natural geographical barriers, the Philippines will always have uses or applications for a satellite network since many areas will remain beyond the economic reach of the terrestrial backbones now in place.’’
