national broadband plan

House speaker Martin G. Romualdez said on Monday, Nov. 28, that he expects the country’s Internet speed to go up a notch next year once the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) implements its National Broadband Plan (NBP) that has been allocated P1.5 billion in the proposed 2023 national budget.

The initiative is part of Phase 1 of the National Broadband Program (NBP) which will link provincial broadband networks through fiber-optic cables.

In comparison, the budget allocation of NBP for the current year 2020 is just P296.4 million, according to the DICT.

The NBP is the flagship initiative of the government for the acceleration of the deployment of fiber-optic cables and wireless technologies to improve the Internet connection speed in the country.

The government's cloud-only policy is also one of the reasons why Microsoft is interested in partnering with the Philippines.