26 May 2022 – On the outer rim of the Sulu Sea lies the small island municipality of Pangutaran – population: 30,000. Although it is technically in the company of 7,640 other islands that make up the Philippines, Pangutaran is the very definition of remote. One would have to take a 5-hour boat ride just to get to the mainland of Sulu, around 60 kilometers away.

The Pangutaran District Hospital, once just a primary healthcare facility, is now a 25-bed government hospital with field health accreditation. With the advocacy of Doctor Emelyn Bahjin-Jalani, the District Hospital Chief, they were able to acquire funding from the Philippines Department of Health and the World Bank to finance the renovation of the facility and have now broken ground to build the foundation for a new 2-story building.

Although the building is getting an infrastructure update, connectivity remained limited, as the island remains out of reach of fibre-based internet and has few other options. Unsatisfied with the limited service from their previous provider, Dr Jodl Isahac, sought out Terralogix Corporation, a system and network integrator based in Davao, seeking an alternative.

Terralogix is a Kacific Authorized Distributor of Transpacific Broadband Group, Inc. (TBGI), which provides affordable and reliable high-speed satellite broadband packages and easy-to-install that can easily be installed in remote areas like Pangutaran. The broadband service is powered by the Kacific1 satellite, a high-throughput Ka-band geostationary satellite owned by Kacific Broadband Satellites, Ltd, which covers 25 countries in the Asia Pacific region with 56 powerful spot-beams.

Kacific’s Ka-band technology and spectrum has been the game changer in satellite technology in recent years, representing a better alternative to the lower satellite bands like C-band and Ku-band in the nation. Ka-band can provide higher-throughput bandwidth using smaller antenna sizes, and the Kacific1 satellite is capable of delivering affordable, reliable, and high-speed satellite broadband with speeds of up to 40Mbps for residential and 120Mbps for businesses.

Today, the connectivity at Pangutaran Hospital is strong and stable enough to make Zoom calls all the way to the Kacific headquarters in Singapore, and enables the hospital to offer telemedicine services, send radiology studies to a centre in Davao for analysis, and offer a higher standard of care to their patients.

Terralogix Corporation is a Davao-based system and network integrator with specialization in designing and building auxiliary systems. Learn more about their services at www.terralogixcorp.com.

Learn more about how to connect to fast, affordable satellite internet services today with Transpacific Broadband Group, Inc. by visiting their website at www.tbgi.net.ph.