Whenever I travel out of Bacolod, Negros Occidental, I always make sure I am at the airport way too early because the airport is a bit far from my place. I’d spend my waiting time eating, observing passengers, or looking at the view surrounding Silay. At times, I’d look at my phone or type something on my laptop. Worse, flights get delayed and there’s even a lot more time to kill. In addition, this idle time seems to stretch much longer because I could not connect to the internet.
Now, this will no longer be the scenario the next time I catch a flight because the Bacolod-Silay International Airport is Wifi-ready. Thanks to PLDT and #SmartWifi I can now check information on the net and message friends online while waiting for my flight. Plus, with a bandwidth of up to 1 gigabit per second, we can have the best customer experience whether surfing the web for our favorite sites, or keeping connected with home and office while traveling.
I tend to agree with Transportation Undersecretary Roberto Lim on what he said during the rollout in Davao City’s airport, “A tourist’s impression of a country will be largely based on the first and last experience of his destination. Smart Wifi contributes to improving this experience and to the success of having them come over and visit again.”
It is important that such experience extends to the Bacolod-Silay airport, which is the primary gateway to Negros Island, and is one of two active airports serving Negros Island, the other being Dumaguete Airport in Sibulan, Negros Oriental. It accounts for about a fifth of the air passenger traffic in Western Visayas.
The good news is that the government has earmarked over P20 billion for the upgrade of the airport under the private-public partnership (PPP) scheme. The project covers the expansion of the passenger terminal building, which will boost its capacity to about 3.1 million passengers annually.
“In this digital age, data connectivity is important especially when one is on the go. With Smart Wifi, travelers will get to enjoy a seamless digital experience for more productive and meaningful journeys,” said Eric R. Alberto, EVP for PLDT/Smart, and president and CEO, ePLDT.
The Bacolod, Iloilo, Laguindingan and Davao airports are among the 21 key transport hubs identified by the DOTr for installation of Smart Wifi to bring the internet into the hands of more Filipinos all over the country. The roll out includes all four passenger terminals of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport as well as airports in Dumaguete, Kalibo, General Santos, Clark, Laoag, Cebu, Caticlan, and Zamboanga. Also in the list are key seaports in Southern Luzon as well as MRT 3, and LRT lines 1 and 2 for Metro Manila.
Traveling around the country will never be the same again. Expect more live posts and updates while I’m on the go.
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