The country’s two biggest telecom companies on Thursday signed a bilateral Internet Protocol peering arrangement after six years of dispute in a bid to improve mobile and fixed-line broadband speed in the Philippines.
PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. signed a memorandum of agreement, which will serve as a preamble to a formal peering agreement between the two parties.
The agreement provides for the two companies to implement a bilateral domestic peering within 30 days. A formal peering agreement is set to be signed by both companies within 90 days.
“After six years of actively advocating for an IP peering, Globe welcomes PLDT’s decision to have a meaningful and applicable IP peering arrangement with us. We are happy with this landmark development considering the benefits to our customers in terms of internet experience,” Globe chief technology and information officer Gil Genio said.
“With an effective domestic internet peering in place, Globe customers will gain direct access to content and applications hosted by PLDT data centers and vice-versa. We are confident that this agreement will redound to a better experience on internet services benefitting customers of both parties and the country as a whole,” Genio said.
The IP peering agreement means that content and applications hosted by the PLDT group which are being accessed by Globe customers will be treated as local content and do not have to be routed overseas, causing additional IP transit costs, delay in data transmission and latency in downloading sites.
About 20 percent of internet traffic is local, which means that traffic originates in the Philippines and terminates in the Philippines
Globe pushed for a mandatory IP peering with PLDT as early as 2011 to improve internet speeds in the country, but rival PLDT said such arrangement would not really address the objective of improving the speed of Internet services given that 80 percent to 90 percent of traffic goes overseas.
PLDT also earlier said the mandatory IP peering could lead to a situation where some parties “free ride” on the networks of others.
PLDT on Thursday, however, entered into a bilateral IP peering with Globe in line with the former’s digital pivot. With the peering arrangement, PLDT and Globe will now allow direct local exchange of traffic between PLDT’s Philippine Internet Exchange and Globe Internet Exchange.
“This is a very positive development and is in line with our digital pivot. We are focused on taking effective measures to improve internet services in the country. IP peering is one such measure. By keeping local traffic local, we improve the internet experience of both PLDT and Globe subscribers,” PLDT executive vice president and head of enterprise Ernesto Alberto said.
“The intention here is to keep local traffic within the country which should lower latency due to less hops and thus, should result in marked improvements in fixed broadband and mobile internet services in the country,” Alberto said.