Globe nixes proposal to block construction of own cell sites

MANILA, Philippines - Globe Telecom Inc. opposes the government’s plan to disallow telcos from building their own cell sites, saying this would not facilitate faster deployment.

While the Ayala-led telco is against the proposal, it is open to sharing cell sites with other providers.

“As far as towers are concerned, the future towers, if we don’t build them, exclusivity should not be an issue. There is going to be supposedly a third party who will build the towers and have it available to everybody,” Globe president and chief executive officer Ernest Cu said yesterday.

“What is difficult to implement is telcos cannot build their own towers. I don’t see how that actually hastens the progress of building connectivity and improving connectivity in this country,” he said.

He said Globe is open to sharing towers with other players.

“We’re very open. We’ve never been closed to sharing towers moving forward,” he said noting more cell sites would be beneficial in terms of allowing the delivery of services in more areas.

“Now, more sites, the better… More sites in areas where the business case is questionable, the better. But as we’ve said many times before, it’s not just a matter of building a tower. You got to create the backhaul facilities to bring the fiber to the towers because in this day and age, microwaves and satellites for that matter are not viable anymore given the heavy payload to bring back data.” he said.

Last week, presidential adviser on economic affairs and information technology communications Ramon Jacinto said the government would implement a common tower policy where in tower companies would build cell sites to be leased to telcos to address the lack of cell towers in the country.

Telcos would no longer be allowed to build their own towers under the policy, but would share with other players.

Each cell site can accommodate three to four players.

Telcos with existing cell sites would also have the option to sell their towers to tower companies.

The government wants to implement the common tower policy to facilitate quicker deployment of towers, as well as address the problem faced by telcos in obtaining permits for building cell sites as the country currently only has 16,000 cell towers which are not sufficient to cater to customers.

Jacinto said the country needs 50,000 towers.

He said the guidelines for the common tower policy would be released next month, while actual implementation is seen to take place in the first quarter of next year.

PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications Inc. public affairs head Ramon Isberto said the company would defer comment until it gets more details on the common tower policy.