INDEPENDENT TOWER FIRM NEEDED – GLOBE TELECOM

GLOBE Telecom is in talks with third parties for the creation of an independent tower company to help speed up the build and deployment of cellular towers in

In a statement on Thursday, the Ayala- led telco said it was also looking at “divesting all or part of its tower assets to independent tower companies as part of its network expansion and optimization plan.”

The company did not disclose the identities of the third parties it was in talks with.

the new common tower policy disclosed by the Duterte administration recently, under which would be barred from building their own cell towers as this would be assigned to third party tower builders and operators.

Ernest Cu, Globe president the plan a “win- win solution” - embrace a new telco player to spark competition and improve broadband services.

“The plan is for these towers to be open for lease to new and existing players. This effectively lessens the barriers that a new entrant has to endure because they will not have to spend the capex [capital expenditure] to build towers and instead focus on rolling out the necessary network equipment. needed for a new player to rollout given the 25 permits and up to 8 months required to build one cell tower,” he explained.

“Our move is also consistent with our position of being open to more competition in the telecommunications industry,” Cu added.

Globe said it will work with these tower companies in determining the appropriate locations for all prospective towers.

However, Cu warned of “rough time ahead” given the heavy red tape faced in securing permits.

With its more than 8,000 cell towers across the country, he said, “The only reason we are able to keep up with the demand for wireless data is because of the ultrahigh capacity nature of our sites,”

“We are one with our customers who want to see further development of the telco industry in the country,” Cu said, noting Globe has been ramping up its capital billion for this year.

“The sustained high capital spending year on year creates a ripple effect on the whole ecosystem through more jobs and better opportunities down to the sari-sari store level,” he added.

In December, the government said the country needs at least 67,000 cell sites to be comparable which serves a population of 90 than 20,000 towers serving 100 million Filipinos.