History of the Philippine Internet

1. History of Philippine Internet
Rachel T. Torres
During March of 1994, the Philippine Network Foundation
(PHNet), enabled the Filipinos to be connected live via a 64
kbps link to Sprint in the United States.
http://www.insidetechnology360.com/index.php/the-history-of-
the-internet-in-the-philippines-35089/
August 1986: The first Philippine-based, public-access
BBS [bulletin board system], First-Fil RBBS
went online with an subscription fee of P1,000,
annually. A precursor to the local online forum, it
ran an open-source BBS software on an IBM XT
Clone PC with a 1200bps modem and was operated
by Dan Angeles and Ed Castañeda.
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2. 1987: The Philippine FidoNet Exchange, a local communication
network between several BBSes in Metro Manila, was formed.
1990: A committee, in control by Arnie del Rosario
of the Ateneo Computer Technology Center, was
tasked with exploring the possibility of creating an
academic network comprised of universities and
government institutions by the National Computer
Center under Dr. William Torres. There were
recommendations given, but not implemented.
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3. 1991-1993: Emergence of email gateways and services in the
Philippines, including some from multinational companies like
Intel, Motorola, and Texas Instruments, which used a direct
Internet connection, X.25, or UCCP protocol. Local firms ETPI,
Philcom, and PLDT also operated commercial X.25 networks.
Another milestone: Local and international email to FidoNet
users was launched.
June 1993: With the assistance of the Department of Science and Technology and the
Industrial Research Foundation, the Philnet project (now PHNET) was born. The Philnet
technical committee, composed of computer buffs working at the DOST and representatives
from the Ateneo de Manila University (Richie Lozada and Arnie del Rosario), De La Salle
University (Kelsey Hartigan-Go), University of the Philippines Diliman (Rodel Atanacio and
Rommel Feria), and University of the Philippines Los Baños, would eventually play a notable
role in connecting the Philippines to the World Wide Web.
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4. July 1993: The first phase of the Philnet project shifted into
full gear after receiving funds from the DOST. It proved to be
a success, as students from partner universities were able to
send emails to the Internet by routing them through Philnet's
gateway at the Ateneo, which was connected to a different
gateway at the Victoria University of Technology in Australia.
November 1993: An additional P12.5-million grant
for the first year's running cost was awarded by the
DOST to buy equipment and lease communication
lines needed to begin the second phase of Philnet,
now headed by Dr. Rudy Villarica.
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5. March 29, 1994, 1:15 a.m.: Benjie Tan, who was working for ComNet, a company that
supplied Cisco routers to the Philnet project, formed the Philippine's first connection to
the Internet at a PLDT network center in Makati City. Shortly after, he posted a message to
the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.filipino to alert Filipinos overseas that a link had been
made. His message is directly stated:
"As of March 29,1994 at 1:15 am Philippine time, unfortunately 2 days late due to slight
technical difficulties, the Philippines was FINALLY connected to the Internet via SprintLink.
The Philippine router, a Cisco 7000 router was attached via the services of PLDT and Sprint
communications to SprintLink's router at Stockton Ca. The gateway to the world for the
Philippines will be via NASA Ames Research Center. For now, a 64K serial link is the
information highway to the rest of the Internet world."
March 29, 1994, 10:18 a.m., Dr. John Brule, a
Professor Emeritus in Electrical and Computer
Engineering at the Syracuse University, reported at
The First International E-Mail Conference at the
University of San Carlos in Talamban, Cebu, "We're
in,”, signifying that Philnet's 64 kbit/s connection
was live.
https://ph.news.yahoo.com/timeline-philippine-internet-20th-anniversary-225454753.html