Converge ICT Builds ISP Network to Promote Philippines Digital Economy

Background

The Philippines offers a wide variety of economically significant local specialties such as mangoes from Luzon Island, Barong Tagalog shirts, wood carvings from the Banaue Rice Terraces, and a variety of bags and carpets made from Manila hemp.

Local sales are limited if sold only to tourists. With the advent of Internet 2.0, e-Commerce has become the most-promising channel to boost revenue for Philippine vendors. Having network bandwidth available is essential for enterprises and individuals engaged in e-Commerce. To ensure the vibrant development of e-Commerce is reliable, high-speed and affordable network services are a must.

Of course, e-Commerce is only one sector of the Internet 2.0 era. Many new economic patterns and business models are steadily emerging based on digital platforms such as online gaming, HD video, and social media. Other than goods such as the above-mentioned, the Philippines has become the Call Center Capital of the world.

Thus, network development is vital to the advancement of the Philippines’ national digital economy.

Converge ICT (Converge) is a pure fiber Internet service provider. It is a leading player in the all-optical broadband access industry with licenses for operating fixed networks, fiber optics, cable TV, enterprise private lines, fixed broadband, and wireless broadband services. Driven by a mission to fulfill the demand for high-speed network services, the company is dedicated to deploying a modern and scalable network infrastructure. It considers this its contribution to the development of a modern digital economy in the Philippines.

Converge has deployed an extensive fiber optic network that covers Central Luzon, the national Capital Region and South Luzon. Its goal is to provide affordable, high-quality fiber Internet services to as large an audience as possible.

Challenges

Converge’s Plan for New Services

Converge started as a cable TV operator. Its live network was a Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial on which medium speed services were deployed. This was the base for growth of its Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) service. With continuous innovations, bandwidth-hungry services like 4K and 3D video began to proliferate. This, in turn, is driving exponential increases in the need for bandwidth.

To fulfill its mission to empower the country to cope with the ever-changing and increasingly-demanding digital times, Converge has begun to roll-out the Philippines’ first pure end-to-end fiber network. Since their initial roll-out, Converge has been able to provide its clientele the type of connectivity that allows them to maximize their Internet use.

Converge is now expanding in the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) service market of Metro Manila by providing customers with highly reliable, high-quality and high-speed optical network services. To this end, Converge has specified a reliable and elastic network that will deliver high input-output ratios that meet contemporary data center requirements. According to Converge’s requirement, this network must also improve support for the current enterprise private line and home broadband access services. It must contribute to future plans for services such as FTTH, enterprise data, data center, cloud, and Smart City throughout the country.

“Early on we felt we needed a network that was reliable, scalable, cost-effective, and allowed us to easily implement new products and services,” said Jesus Romero, Chief Operating Officer of Converge. “And we are very pleased that we were able to, in fact, get that with Huawei.”

Solution

Huawei’s Professional Network and Business Consulting Team

Huawei serves the top 50 network operators worldwide, has built more than 1,500 networks, and is a member of more than 360 standards-defining organizations, industry alliances, or open source communities. Huawei currently holds more than 300 leadership positions in organizations such as IEEE-SA, IIC, BBF, ETSI, TMF, and WFA. With the Huawei Innovation Research Program (HIRP), the organization is conducting cooperative innovation with over 400 research institutes and 900 enterprises in more than 30 countries or regions around the world.

After years of practical experience, Huawei has built a professional network of consulting, planning, construction, and maintenance teams. Since 2006, Huawei’s global consultants have provided professional consulting services for over 120 operators in more than 70 countries or regions to help operators resolve business pain points and improve core competitiveness. With a full understanding of Converge’s current network situation and future plans, Huawei helped Converge sort out and explore potential high-value customers, develop solutions for network construction, and outline future-oriented service plans.

Agile WAN Solutions Meet Large Bandwidth and Network Evolution Requirements

Huawei proposed its Agile WAN Solution to Converge that will use NE40E universal service routers to build a Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) 2.0 network. The solution will help Converge construct an intelligent, ultra-broadband, and simplified network to meet their service development and network evolution needs.

• IP + optical synergy affords one-click service deployment. The ‘IP + optical synergy’ solution applies cross-layer network resource integration and automatic cross-domain topology discovery, simplifies O&M, and achieves end-to-end service deployment in minutes.
• The 2 Tbit/s large-capacity line cards meet large bandwidth service requirements. Built on a 2T platform, the NE40E series energy-efficient routers support smooth capacity expansion to 2 Tbit/s per slot. This allows large-capacity service support and the ability to meet future increases in bandwidth needs.
• Hierarchical Quality of Service (HQoS) meets user service experience requirements. HQoS is applied in an end-to-end manner. It allows fine-grained service scheduling by differentiating users and services, and provides large buffers, low latency, and high reliability to ensure superior service quality and meet individual user service experience requirements.
• Broadband remote server access in multiple scenarios and hot-standby technology ensure non-stop services. Users can access the network in Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE), Internet Protocol over Ethernet (IPoE), dial-up, private line, wired, or wireless modes. Five authentication modes are supported, to afford unified user access for the entire network. Hot-standby technology allows user information to be backed up between active and standby devices with rapid and covert traffic switching.

Benefits

Assisting Converge to Become One of the Best FTTH Providers

From the Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (DWDM) backbone and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) core, to the MAN, and all the way down to the access network, Converge’s network is largely built by Huawei.

The renewed Converge network is more reliable and stable. It achieves lower latency, higher rates of speed, and easier O&M — all of which help Converge to launch new products and services quickly. Most importantly, the new network will help Converge to better meet customer requirements and automatically distribute services suited for market needs. The network is beneficial for e-Commerce companies that sell Philippine specialties; Internet enterprises providing online live streaming and HD video services; innovative enterprises that engage in local social media or sharing platforms; and citizens — all helping to vigorously promote a robust digital economy in the Philippines. In partnership with Huawei, Converge has enhanced its reputation for providing FTTH services that create superior customer experiences.

“Huawei has been responsive in terms of support,” Romero said. “In terms of pricing, they remain competitive, and they help us a lot with strategy planning, what to do next, and where to go — which is one key area where we feel we should continue and expand cooperation.”