PLDT has secured provisional authority from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to build two new cable landing stations in the country that will host the Apricot cable system, which is the newest Intra-Asia submarine cable strategically facing the Pacific side of the Philippines.
The construction of the cable landing stations in Baler, Aurora in the North East as well as in Digos, Davao in the Southern coastal borders of the country gives telco carriers new alternate routes that do not traverse the usual West Philippine Sea waters.
The project is scheduled to be completed by early 2025. These new cable landing facilities will strengthen PLDT’s international cable network in order to deliver higher speeds and lower latency connectivity inside and outside of the Philippines and add resiliency to its other existing landing stations located in Batangas, La Union and Daet.
“The Apricot cable system’s route ensures a significantly higher degree of resilience. When our Baler and Davao cable landing stations are completed, PLDT will have alternate sites facing the Pacific, making it easier to hook up to data offices in the US,” said PLDT and Smart President and CEO Alfredo S. Panlilio.
The completion of the Apricot cable by the end of 2025 will further augment PLDT's international capacity for data traffic, specifically to the United States and across Asia and the Pacific, as well as increase PLDT’s total international capacity to more than 140Tbps. The 12,000-kilometer-long cable system will connect the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan and Guam.
“As we help position the Philippines as the new hyperscaler destination and major transit hub in Asia, we continue to upgrade and build on the foundations of PLDT’s global network infrastructure. These investments enable us to provide superior digital services to our consumer and enterprise customers, deliver newer technologies with our 4G & 5G capabilities and add value for attracting hyperscalers and investors to expand their cloud in the country,” Panlilio added.
The PLDT Group said it would support the digitalization efforts of the government with the aim of helping drive growth for a strong digital economy as well as empower the digital transformation of the country.
As of the end of March 2023, PLDT had expanded its total fiber footprint to more than 1.1 million kilometers, consisting of over 231,000 kilometers of international fiber and over 874,000 kilometers of domestic fiber.