The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is ramping up its efforts for its ambitious National Fiber Backbone (NFB) program as it eyes to complete the project a year ahead of its original target.

At the sidelines of the FiberConnect APAC Conference 2024 in Mandaluyong City on Tuesday, DICT Secretary Ivan Uy said that the department is now targeting to complete the NFB by 2027, a year ahead of its 2028 original target, after successfully securing a $288-million loan from World Bank.

Without the World Bank’s assistance, DICT’s project would have solely relied on the country’s national budget.

“The strategy that we took was, while we are relying on Congress to fund our national backbone, we will be implementing in parallel the remaining phases through funding from the World Bank,” Uy said.

The three phases of the project are expected to be operational by 2025, covering Luzon and some portions of Visayas and Mindanao.

In April, the government completed the first phase of the NFB with the successful deployment of a 1,245-kilometer cable network connecting 28 nodes from Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, to Quezon City, covering the Northern and Central Luzon, Metro Manila, and four Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) ecozones. It was able to deliver an initial 600 Gbps optical capacity.

Meanwhile, the deployment of phases 2 and 3 are already underway and are on track for completion by mid-2025.

By 2027, the DICT expects the NFB to boost internet penetration to 65 percent from the current 33 percent, and benefit as much as 70 million out of 115 million Filipinos.

The NFB aims to provide a government-owned high-speed fiber network, which will serve as the backbone for public internet access, benefiting government agencies, public institutions, and underserved communities.

In addition, the initiative was expected to make connectivity more affordable, potentially lowering internet costs.

According to Uy, the World Bank-backed project was expected to make a significant impact, citing how its other project, the deployment of 13,000 free WiFi sites, had already served and benefited more than 10 million Filipinos to date.