Common tower plan taking shape — DICT

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said its common tower initiative has started taking shape following last week’s signing of an agreement between a telecommunications operator and common tower providers.

Globe Telecom Inc. became the first mobile operator in the country to secure a deal with aspiring common tower providers after it signed Monday a tripartite agreement with ISOC Infrastructure Inc. of businessman Michael Cosiquien and Malaysia-based tower giant edotco Group Sdn. Bhd.

Information and Communications Technology Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio said the agreement is a key step in the government’s goal to  improve the ICT infrastructure in the country.

“This feat shows that the common tower initiative is taking shape, and with the continued collaboration between the telco operators and the common tower provider pool, we are bound to experience improved telecommunication services in no time,” Rio said.

“We hope more signings will follow suit in the coming weeks as we embarked in this united push for aggressive tower rollout in line with our policy on passive infrastructure sharing,” Rio said.

With a total of 23 common tower providers as partners, the DICT targets the rollout of at least 50,000 cellular towers across the country within the next seven to 10 years.

The DICT is  accelerating the rollout of common towers nationwide as it identified an initial 2,500 sites  for the shared telecommunications infrastructure.

Rio said the government’s support in facilitating the permits and regulatory documents would help accelerate  the building of more towers nationwide.

From negotiations and documentation of prospective cell site location to securing structural permits and approvals, Globe said it would take an average of eight months and over 25 permits before it can build a single cellular site.

Aside from the lengthy permitting process, issues like social acceptability and opposition from homeowners were also cited as factors that hamper telcos from deploying cell sites fast and efficiently.