THE BOARD of Investments has granted pioneer incentives to Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.’s P850-million project to build the country’s first world-class Internet data centers (IDC).

The BOI board ruled that PLDT was eligible for pioneer incentives -- which offer a longer income tax holiday of six years compared to the standard four years -- because it would use a new technology and that its investments were more than eight times the minimum capital requirement of P100 million.

PLDT, through its subsidiary ePLDT Inc., will build here IDCs that would be patterned after similar facilities in the US and Europe. IDCs are state-of-the-art secured buildings that will host, co-locate and manage computer servers and applications for their clients’ Internet and multimedia operations.

Its co-locator services are aimed at companies that opt to keep their hardware solutions and website management in-house without having to worry about the maintenance and storage of their equipment.

ePLDT will provide a warehouse for the equipment divided into cages (for servers and other hardware), racks (for smaller servers) and vaults (for big corporate clients who will outsource a big chunk of their information technology infrastructure in the IDC). ePLDT will have 266 racks, 52 cages, and four vaults covering nearly half a hectare.

ePLDT will help companies put up and run their own websites as well as support database administration, in-depth server monitoring software, computer utilization and statistics on utilization.

ePLDT also renders security services wherein the company can assess the client’s network environment security by identifying the system’s weak spots, determine current security status of the customer, and recommend and provide the level and type of security needed.

The IDC provides an off-site facility as backup for the applications and data for companies which find it critical to have a reserve in case of a system crash.

ePLDT’s hosting and backup services has a capacity of 3,200 gigabytes while its security services has 288 ports.

The company will spend P446.7 million to improve its existing facilities; P368.4 million to procure new hardware; and P34.8 million for the software. The project will be financed through equity investments by PLDT. The project is expected to start next month.