By Jaspearl Tan

Japan’s InfiniVAN Inc., together with two Philippine telecommunication companies, launched the express route of the country’s longest submarine fiber optic cable network late Thursday.

At the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City, InfiniVAn, Eastern Telecom, and Globe Telecom marked the launch of the Philippine Domestic Submarine Cable Network (PDSCN) lighting up ceremony.

The network is a 2,500-kilometer unrepeated undersea fiber optic backbone network infrastructure that connects Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao with touchpoints in 21 provinces.

President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. said the project is a “game changer” for internet connectivity.

“The project that you initiated, and meticulously completed without much fanfare, is truly a game changer in the Philippines’ quest to be amongst equals in terms of internet interconnectivity and digital transformation,” Marcos said.

“It is also a testament not only to Japanese ingenuity and technological advancement that we strive to emulate, but also to the strong bonds of friendship that connect our two countries forever,” he said.

“Because of this connection, we now find a long-term solution that delivers high-connectivity and high-speed internet for our people and facilitates the realization of the Bagong Pilipinas that we envision for our country,” he added.

Marcos also said the project helps make the Philippines a more attractive destination for technology-centric businesses including hyperscale data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) companies.

He added that it would also provide faster internet and more efficient digital services to Filipinos in urban and rural areas of the country as well as facilitate efforts to digitalize public data and government services.

The ceremony was also attended by Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Kazuhiko Koshikawa, InfiniVan Chairman Koji Miyashita, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan Uy.

InfiniVan, a subsidiary of IPS Inc., has more than 20 Terabits and has the third largest upstream capacity to the internet backbone from the Philippines among internet bandwidth providers.

It initiated the network, which is a $150-million joint project meant to be used by other service providers in an Open Network teaming arrangement. DMS