After two years of delayed full implementation of the project, this year, Palawenos would expect more free Wi-Fi hotspots in the province.
In a press conference, Asec Alan Silor of the Department of Information and Communications Technology confirmed that there will be more than a hundred hotspots to be installed this year.
“In 2018, we conducted a new bidding and its awarded to another vendor that it will provide 100 plus hotspots across Puerto Princesa plus the nearby municipalities. We are hoping that it will be implemented this year,” Asec Silor said.
The assistant secretary also explained that in 2016, there was an awarding of bid, but was poorly implemented, thus resulted to the delay of the project.
“There were five schools lang [ang nalagyan]. The government would act on it and terminate the contract for the non-delivery of service,” he said.
Asec Silor also said that they already have VSAT and fiber optic connection and assured that the project implementation would be “realistic this time.”
VSAT also known as the very small aperture terminal is a satellite communications system, which is less prone to downtime as there are no issues such as fiber breaks or cuts.
Free Wi-Fi will be available in schools and public places including the Palawan State University, provincial capitol and the city hall.
“We will be providing in common areas where students would converge,” he said.
The free connectivity is estimated to deliver at least 2 MBps per subscriber usage.
“Hindi lang basta speed, but it’s the CIR, committed information rate. The delivery of the provider should be as high as 98%. We expect better delivery of service,” he added.
CIR, according to Wikipedia, is the bandwidth for a virtual circuit guaranteed by an internet service provider to work under normal conditions.
When asked about the availability of 5G in Palawan, Asec Silor said that as of the moment, so far, the country has no standards, policies regarding the implementation.
“Actually there is no standards, there is no policies. Wala pang nilalabas si NTC regarding 5G. The technology is available worldwide, but still on testing. So, we are seeing in the Philippine Telecommunications Industry that the two telcos are testing 5G in some areas in the country. And most probably, this will be implemented, the way we foresee it, is on 2020. It will be useless to rollout this year, because there is a little or a very few devices available. Kahit may 5G na nagbobroadcast pero yung device natin di makakasagap ng 5G, di rin gagana,” he explained.