UK-based Malaysian firm Stratospheric Airship Technologies Sdn Bhd (SAT) is investing $500 million in the Subic Bay Freeport, northwest of Manila, to build communication airships designed to augment telecom facilities in the Philippines, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) said Tuesday.
SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza recently signed a memorandum of agreement on the project with SAT managing director Bryn Lloyd Williams, the SBMA said in a statement.
Under the plan, SAT intends to build solar-powered commercial airships that will carry broadband and telecommunications equipment.
Williams said the high-altitude unmanned airships would provide communications links covering the entire country—a new trend that has promising prospects in view of the telecommunications industry’s rapid growth.
“The key technological advantage here is that we don’t need the ground infrastructure which is too costly and sometimes, very difficult to install. In some places, it gets stoned or vandalized, and weather conditions interfere with its performance,” Williams said.
Williams said the airships would operate at a height of 65,000-70,000 feet—high above the clouds and air movement. During their 15-year life span, the airships will be brought down once every five years for repairs.
The UK firm is targeting the likes of mobile phone firm Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. as potential clients.
“We’re talking to Globe and Smart and they have expressed a high level of interest to augment their land-based and satellite systems,” Williams revealed.
The SBMA said it had allocated a 10-hectare property at the Subic Bay International Airport for SAT.
The space is currently used by Federal Express as a hub for its Asian operations, but FedEx will be transferring its Asian hub to Guangzhou, China, by the end of the year.
After FedEx moves out, SAT would move in with large warehouses, hangars and its big single-spanned building, the SBMA said.
“When the SAT project pushes through, we will see Subic as a high-tech manufacturing center, and this fits very well with what we are trying to do,” Arreza said.
“Our objective is to really expand development in the Subic Freeport and the surrounding regions. With the opening of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX), we hope to have more manufacturing jobs move along the expressway,” Arreza added. With editing by INQUIRER.net
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