ISM Communications Corp. (ISM) is building a cable backhaul facility in Nasugbu, Batangas for its subsidiary Eastern Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (ETPI) to better serve the phone firm’s corporate clients.

At the company’ stockholders’ meeting, ISM and ETPI president Eric Recto said the facility will cost around $20 million. Construction started last month and is targeted for completion in September this year.

“We have programmed $20 million in capital expenditure [capex] this year. Most of which will be allotted to the backhaul facility that we are building for our Internet-cable facility to serve our corporate clients in Manila and some export zones located in the south,” said Recto.

Funding will be sourced from Internally-generated funds, he added.

ETPI is part of the consortium that built the 20,000-kilometer Asian American Gateway (AAG) fiber optic- cable network. “Our investment there is just minimal. The backhaul that we are building now is land-based. Besides, we can not rely on another carrier to provide us the backhaul where essentially we are held hostage to this pricing whims. That is exactly what we are trying to get out of,” said Recto.

ISM now holds 77.7 percent of ETPI, the country’s oldest phone firm. Chairman Roberto Ongpin said ISM is on the lookout for more opportunities that will help strengthen the company.

“We continue with our search for acquisitions in the ICT sector. We are confident that there will be a number of opportunities that will arise and we will take advantage of the opportunities that will come around,” he said.

In 2007, ETPI invested P190 million for capex. Of this amount, P64 million was spent expanding its international submarine-cable capacities  via investments in the APCN2 and AAG cable systems, while P56 million was spent building the company’s customer access network.

ETPI also poured in P54.4 million on network and service-improvement programs, as part of its continuous efforts to make its products and services competitive.

Its topline improved from P701 million in 2006 to P777 million in 2007. Internet and data services grew by 20 percent and 15 percent, respectively, despite the ongoing price war in broadband services, while voice revenues declined by 15 percent, partly due to the reduction in overall toll revenues.

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