Globe hits draft common tower policy

Telco giant Globe Telecom Inc. criticized anew the government’s proposed draft common tower policy, reiterating its call not to limit the creation and operation of towers to only two independent private companies.

Globe cited latest data released by TowerXchange, an independent community for global tower industry, showing that Asian markets with the highest number of cellular towers in the region implement a common tower policy that allows for more than two tower companies.

In the report, countries found with the most number of tower companies, like India and Indonesia, have the highest number of towers.

India has eight tower companies with 461,550 cellular towers as of the third quarter of 2017, while Indonesia has over 93,500 towers being serviced by over 11 independent tower firms.

Meanwhile, the Philippines, the world’s top social media user, lags behind some of its neighbors in terms of number of cellular towers, according to Globe.

The Ayala-led telco firm said the country only has a total of 16,500 cell sites, but needs about 50,000 towers at the least to properly serve some 113 million subscribers.

To address the lack of cellular towers which has long been identified as the greatest

barrier to seamless mobile internet connectivity in the country, the government is looking at implementing its own common tower policy that would promote the sharing of infrastructure in the public telecommunications market.

Globe, however, said the latest draft policy rules on common tower limit the creation and operation of towers to only two independent private companies with up to 100 percent foreign equity.

“Limiting the building of towers to two-player independent tower companies unfairly discriminates against the other models and is contrary to best practices,” Globe general legal counsel Froilan Castelo said.

Castelo said the Philippines would need as many tower companies as possible to construct the required towers within the shortest possible time given the increasing demand for coverage and capacity. He said data from TowerXchange also showed that around 51 percent of the world’s towers built by tower companies are owned by mobile network operators (MNOs).

“In most Asian markets, MNOs have divested or spun off their tower assets and instead rent tower space from other operators or independent TowerCos,” Castelo said.

“The most successful and thriving tower companies are those established by tower companies or through a consortium of MNOs. Opening up the TowerCos to all MNOs avoids anti-competitive risks because even new entrants may join a TowerCo consortium,” he said.

Globe in August secured the approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to establish a separate tower holding company, which will operationalize the divestment of all or part of its tower assets through a separate company.