MANILA, Philippines — The tandem of Malaysia-based tower giant edotco Group Sdn. Bhd. and Filipino firm ISOC Infrastructure Inc. of Megawide co-founder Michael Cosiquien looks to hit the ground running within the year with the first of many common towers it plans to build nationwide.
Eliseo Rio, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary for operations, told The STAR that the edotco-ISOC team is looking to start construction within the year of common towers for Globe and Smart.
Rio said the plan is to break ground for the first one in Cavite for Globe this month, and for Smart by next month covering areas other than Cavite.
The country’s first ever common tower broke ground last month in Caoayan, Ilocos Sur courtesy of LCS Holdings Inc. of politician Luis “Chavit” Singson, with third telco player Dito Telecommunity as its first customer.
The edotco-ISOC team earlier said it plans to pour in an initial $100 million investment to advance the country’s telecommunications industry through the construction of common towers. The $100 million investment was seen covering development of about 1,000 common towers nationwide.
Globe has signed an agreement with the tandem which involves construction of an initial 150 common towers in various sites in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon).
Smart has also inked a common tower deal with the edotco-ISOC team in which around 71 sites were initially identified.
Pending the release of a common tower policy, the DICT last May issued the “Rules on the Accelerated Roll-Out of Common Towers in the Philippines” which serves as the basis of a more comprehensive rules and guidelines governing passive telecommunications infrastructure sharing.
A total of 24 tower companies have so far indicated interest in participating in the government’s common tower initiative.
The DICT targets the rollout of at least 50,000 cellular towers across the country within the next seven to 10 years as part of its common tower program which is expected to significantly reduce costs to the industry through more efficient use of towers.