HOW do we decongest the Internet now that we require more information in shorter time? How can we speed up Internet access despite the overload of multimedia?

As demand for more information intensifies, increased focus on Internet-based technology heightens. And the more bandwidth is being required to enable faster access to large data. Bandwidth or Mbps is like a huge highway where information passes.

Responding to the obstacles faced by Internet service providers over bandwidths, PhilCast claims to possess the satellite-based technology to address the issue of speed of Internet access. The technology is described to bypass the phone system most particularly when receiving data.

PhilCast's high-speed Internet mechanism DirecPC uses the same process of sending outbound information or users' requests via a modem over an ordinary phone line. But instead of going the same route on its way back to the user, the data take a detour. PhilCast stressed that all the high bandwidth responses from the Internet are blasted back to PCs by satellite.

''Think of the ISP as providing a two-way pipe; a 'hose' going out toward the Internet for request and typically the same pipe size for coming back,'' explains Ray Anthony A. Chan, Asia-Pacific marketing manager for Hughes Network Systems, PhilCast's equipment and technology provider.

''We have a small pipe to request and a small pipe to feedback,'' adds Chan. ''What DirecPC provides is the users still have those two small pipes but DirecPC gives them a bigger pipe which takes information from the Internet back to the user.''

Chan stressed this technology could be the answer to the bugging problem of cable infrastructure in the Philippines, which as an archipelago is experiencing difficulties in this aspect. Those depending on cables for Internet access are limited by cable networks confined in Metro Manila, Chan adds.

''Ours, on the other hand, is as big as the satellite footprint which covers the entire (nation),'' he says.

Chan says that from ''consumer to corporate clients, Philcast is in this place because it provides a multimedia service while Hughes provides the equipment and the technology that allow Philcast to provide service.''

Philcast claims that DirecPC is 14 times faster than a typical 28.8 modem, eight times faster than a 56K modem, and more than three times faster than a dedicated ISDN line. ISDN or Integrated Services Digital Network is a wide area network (WAN)-oriented data communication service provided by telephone companies.

DirecPC spits out information at 400 kilobits per second. Its Turbo Internet claims to be faster than the basic rate ISDN and fractional T1 lines. Multimedia multicast service features live transmissions to the desktop in multiple sites for corporations and content providers. DirecPC is also equipped with a receiving station for pushing any file size.