By Ed Paolo Salting
PRESIDENTIAL Adviser for Telecommunications Secretary Ramon “RJ “Jacinto congratulated PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.) for divesting 5,907 of their telecom towers to two international telecommunications infrastructure services companies: “edotco Group” and “EdgePoint.”
“This is a groundbreaking move and a testimonial to PLDT Chairman Manny Pangilinan’s broad long-term outlook for our telecoms industry,” Jacinto said.
Jacinto’s common tower initiatives were initially met with resistance but eventually, the telcos accepted it. His suggestion of only having two to five qualified world-class tower companies undertaking the project for the purpose of economic viability has been thoroughly considered with PLDT divesting to only two experienced international tower companies.
“It makes complete sense to leave the building and operation of towers to experienced tower companies so the mobile telco operators can unlock the capital and concentrate their funding on improving their service. You cannot have every one building as it would only lead to chaos,” Jacinto added.
Jacinto further emphasized that selling off the towers was a good start but the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) tower policy needs to be strengthened and key ingredients need to be in place for the long term. He gave some suggestions on this like a mandated roll out plan, and a schedule to build the needed 50,000 towers within a five-year period to finally achieve maximum coverage all throughout the country.
For comparison, Vietnam has around 70,000 towers with a population of 97 million. Indonesia has 93,600 towers with 275 million population. In the Philippines, however, the country only has 16,300 towers with 125 million population.
Jacinto’s office also said that there is a pending executive order to further improve the policy. The policy suggests that three mobile telco players, together with the government (DICT), should agree beforehand on the targeted 50,000 common locations backed up by an RF (radio frequency) study. It also included a mandated schedule that should be agreed upon by the players and the government so a fixed rollout can start. There was also an added part that the mobile telcos should also be given incentives to build in the far-flung areas.
