DICT to issue common tower policy in March

MANILA – The common tower policy, which would allow multiple telecommunications (telco) networks to use the same towers resulting in faster rollout and cheaper services, would be released next month,

Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Gregorio Honasan II said on Wednesday.

In an interview during a site inspection of one of the cell towers in Quezon City of DITO Telecommunity, a third telco player, Honasan said the policy is now on its final draft and will be released in the coming weeks.

“We want to make sure that everybody is heard. Marinig natin lahat ng (We will hear all the) players. Basta sabi namin, ang iwawagayway natin ay (We told them, let’s wave the) yung Philippine flag, hindi yung (not the) balance sheets, and income statements,” Honasan said.

DICT Undersecretary Eliseo Rio Jr. earlier announced that the common tower policy would be released in January.

However, it was then again pushed to March to ensure that telco companies were included in its drafting and that the policy is “thorough, comprehensive, and be guided by what the data tells us,” Honasan said.

He said bureaucratic problems contributed to the delay in its release, as well as some technical problems such as inconsistent baseline data submitted by the stakeholders in the country’s telco industry.

“In fact, we have problems with data management-yung baseline data natin kanya-kanya (our baseline data has been free for all). The delays are explainable in short,” Honasan said.