Seeking to build momentum in its turnaround program, EasyCall Communications Philippines Inc. said it would spend the bulk of its P11.5-million capital expenditure program on network upgrades to meet demand for Internet access and related services.

Company president Socorro Niro said at a stockholders briefing Monday that about P5.1 million would be spent to upgrade EasyCall’s Internet protocol (IP) data center, P2.1 million to improve network firewall security, and P2.65 million to put up a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) gateway.

Working capital will take up P1.64 million, she said.

The spending program will be funded by a stock rights offer, Niro said.

“We are going for an all-IP network,” Niro said in an interview at the sidelines of the meeting. “We are a reseller of [telecommunications] services, and we are preparing our network for this so that we can pass on large bandwidth to clients and be able to respond quickly to market demands.”

In the first quarter of 2008, much of Easycall’s P4.03 million in service revenues came from subsidiary EasyCall eServices Inc. With editing by INQUIRER.net