POSITIONING themselves for the expected onset of convergence in the Philippines, two networking players recently beefed up their presence in the local market. 3M Philippines introduced a fiber-to-the-desktop (FTTD) solution that it claims makes fiber optics systems an even more cost-effective alternative to copper networks. Meanwhile, D-Link International appointed Phil-Data Business Systems Inc. as part of its thrust to become the country's No. 2 networking player by year-end.

"There's always going to be competition between copper and fiber. The question is not whether you can achieve gigabit-per-second transmission on copper cable, but the better thing to ask is how much headroom copper can give you," said Chuck Pilarta, senior sales engineer for the Electro and Telecom Group of 3M Philippines' Telecom Systems Division.

Pilarta was responding to the question of whether 3M's new Volition Network Solutions would weaken the Philippine market for such technologies as Digital Subscriber Line or DSL, which aims to optimize the bandwidth of existing copper lines. He noted that one of copper's limitations is its short effective range of up to 100 meters, which makes it necessary to build hybrid or distributed copper/fiber backbones. He explained, however, that degradation is a problem with these hybrid backbones, resulting from the conversion from copper's electrical signals to fiber's light or optical transmissions.

Instead, 3M is advocating an all-fiber solution hinging on the VF-45 Interconnect, which it hopes to become a standard like the present RJ-45. While fiber has been commonly deployed for network backbones, it has been perceived as too costly, fragile and complex for the desktop environment. With its end-to-end solution, however, 3M now aims to speed up the migration to FTTD while reportedly eliminating the costs and complexity of traditional fiber cabling solutions. Moreover, the deployment of fiber means that companies would benefit from a scalable network providing the bandwidth that could support future convergent applications.

Why is there a need to build support for future applications into today's networks, anyway? While convergence has been an overused buzzword, the trend nowadays is for data networking and telecommunications companies to lay the groundwork for a common infrastructure supporting data, voice and video.

Peter Lim, D-Link's managing director, stressed that it expects convergent applications like voice-over-IP to drive the need for more robust networks in the Philippines. He added that these new technologies would further open up the telecommunications industry to competition.

"Today, the telecommunications industry is still a monopoly. To get a 64K leased line in Southeast Asia is still a nightmare. Still, convergence means that telcos would have to evolve in the face of competition from data networking companies, Internet service providers and other smaller players taking advantage of new technologies," Lim said.

Manny Amador, founding head of the Philippine League for Democratic Telecommunications Inc., echoed this view of the coming changes in the telecommunications industry in a separate interview.

"The thing telcos have to remember is that the profitability of voice is getting less and less. Soon, telcos might even give voice services away (for free). Voice is becoming a commodity. So what should telcos do? Innovate. The revenue center in the future won't be in the provision of voice but on data services," Amador said.

While innovative network services seem to be the road toward the convergent future, Lim acknowledged that it would still take a while for Philippine companies to adopt such technologies as voice-over-IP.

"It's still in the infancy stage. We, however, believe that many companies here are already looking toward the future," Lim said.

Pilarta also acknowledged that not every company would immediately require the bandwidth that its all-fiber solution supplies.