No need for accreditation for common tower firms — DICT

MANILA, Philippines — The government may do away with accrediting and limiting the number of companies to build common cellular towers to accommodate all interested firms, Information and Communications Technology Secretary Eliseo Rio said.

“More or less, it will be opened for all, whoever is interested,” Rio said, adding that “we will not choose because we are not the one who will use the towers.”

According to Rio, they may allow any company to build a common tower without any need for DICT accreditation.

He said while the government may assist the firms in getting permits, it would be up to the companies on how to market their infrastructure to telco players.

 “We have, as of now, five interested common towers provider that could in effect start putting up their towers before the end of the year,” Rio said.

Under the initial guidelines of the common tower and pole policy released last month, one or a maximum of two common tower companies will be accredited by the DICT.

The guidelines stated that the maximum rollout capacity of one common tower company is about 25,000 for a seven-year period, so two companies may be chosen for a total of 50,000 towers. 

The development of common towers is expected to greatly improve mobile telecommunication services, internet reliability and efficiency.

DICT said common towers is a worldwide trend and are most prevalent in China and other countries like Australia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

ISOC Infrastructures Inc. (ISOC Infra), a company chaired by Megawide Construction Corp. co-founder Michael Cosiquien, submitted last month an unsolicited proposal to DICT to build telecommunication towers to be shared among the country’s telco operators.

Under the proposal, ISOC Infra intends to invest P100 billion over a seven year period to construct 25,000 towers nationwide that could be commonly shared by PLDT,  Globe, and an upcoming third telco player.