DICT bats for faster permit process in building cell sites

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) admitted yesterday that the insufficient sites and communication infrastructure are causing slow internet connection in the country.

“We acknowledge that one of the main problems was the lack of cell sites to handle the country’s volume of data traffic,” acting DICT Secretary Eliseo Rio said.

However, he said one area that needs to be addressed is the long waiting time in project documentation.

He said the roughly 25 permits needed to build one cell site tower has kept the total number of cell sites in the country at around 20,000 when the country needs at least 67,000. Vietnam has 70,000, he noted.

Rio said they are appealing to Malacañang to issue an executive order to lessen the local government units (LGUs) and national government agencies (NGAs) permits to build towers – and to limit approval or disapproval to seven calendar days.

“We are also planning to increase WiFi access points in public places to provide people with free WiFi and to help decongest existing cell sites,” Rio said.