FIBER OPTIC CABLES ALONG THE RAILWAYS

FIBER OPTIC CABLES ALONG THE RAILWAYS When I was in Japan many years ago as a guest of the Japanese government to observe their advanced Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), I learned that over there, all railroad operators including Japan Railways (JR) were required to lay down fiber optic cables along all of their railroads. What that means is that all over Japan, there are always fiber optic networks where there are railroad networks. When I was in the United States as a Press Attaché in the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC and as a Consular Assistant at the Philippine Consulate General in New York, I also observed that all railroad operators over there were also required to lay down fiber optic cables along all of their railroads. Aside from that, new telecom players were allowed to install their own fiber optic cables anywhere, anytime. Aside from the fact that there are no right of way (ROW) problems if the fiber optic cables are laid down along the railways, it is also cheaper to do that, instead of digging new underground systems where there are no railways. Because of the cheaper costs, it would be safe to assume that the costs of the internet and mobile services would become cheaper also. In theory, the internet and mobile signals could also become faster. At the risk of stating the obvious, ROW issues are really big problems in infrastructure development. Not unless the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will be required to submit a list of ROW problems that are affecting road building projects, we will never know the numbers. If we include the ROW problems of the PPP projects, the list could go longer. In the days when the transportation and the communications functions were still rolled into one in the defunct Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), it would have been easier to coordinate the building of railroads with the laying down of fiber cables. But for now, it is not too late for the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to talk to each other. IKE SENERES/08-30-2024