Government caps common tower pool to 15

MANILA, Philippines — The government is temporarily capping at 15 the roster of interested foreign and local common tower providers in the country despite more firms looking to join the already packed pool.

Information Communications and Technology acting Secretary Eliseo Rio said three more firms have expressed interest to join the pool of companies eyeing to build shared telecommunications infrastructure across the country, but they will not be accommodated at the moment.

“There are still three who have shown their interest, but they may not be accommodated in the first year,” Rio said.

“We will put it on hold for the meantime because 15 may be too much to handle. We still don’t know how many our industry can accommodate. What is important for us is to let market forces decide on what is necessary. We will stop for the meantime because I think we have gotten the best of the best,” he said.

Rio said the current 15 interested common tower providers may be enough to serve its initial 3,000 common towers target for this year.

“But if market says we need more than 15, then six months from now, we can open it up again,” he said.

“We have no data yet as to how much the industry can accommodate. Maybe 15, only four or five is just needed so we still don’t know. This is a market force thing,” Rio added.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has signed memoranda of understanding (MOU) with 15 aspiring tower providers, two of which were inked yesterday.

The two latest additions were Korea’s Shinheung Telecom Co. Ltd. and a Filipino-Indian consortium ALT Global Solutions Inc.

Both companies have expressed their intent to support the government’s common tower initiative which seeks to have at least 50,000 new common towers built across the country in the next seven to 10 years.

ALT Global Solutions director Sherwin Hing said the consortium, for one, is looking at constructing at least 3,000 towers all over the Philippines, which would require about $300 million in investment.

“We are happy that may people showed interest to be common tower provider in the Philippines. We need to have these towers as soon as possible. The more towers the better for us,” Rio said.