After what seemed to be an eternity, both PLDT and Globe have finally signed a memorandum of agreement to establish a bilateral IP peering arrangement that the companies hope to improve the state of Internet in the PH.

“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,” said Ernesto R. Alberto, PLDT Executive Vice President and Head of Enterprise.

Before the agreement, there was no direct exchange of information from PLDT’s Philippine Internet Exchange (PhIX) to Globe’s Internet Exchange (GIX). That resulted in extra hops to overseas servers, resulting in higher latency and longer load times. It’s also the reason why gamers that use different providers in the Philippines have higher pings when playing against one another despite being in the same country.

The MOA paves the way for the initial phase of bilateral peering which is localized IP traffic exchange between the PLDT Group broadband and mobile subscribers and Globe Group subscribers, which should be completed 30 days after the execution of the MOA. It also dictates that the two telcos will work towards executing a fuller bilateral peering agreement within 90 days after the initial phase has been accepted.