Ifs and buts of a common tower policy

The idea of having common towers to be used by telecommunication companies, namely Smart, Globe plus one or two more future new players in the industry, bears some consideration, but will certainly need to be thought out well so that it will be beneficial not just to consumers, but to everyone in the industry.

Let me share some ifs and buts that the office of the presidential adviser on economic affairs and information technology communications, headed by Ramon “RJ” Jacinto, should consider before the final policy version is made public this month.

If the policy will explicitly disallow existing and new telecommunication companies (telcos) from building their own towers, this will be a basic infringement of their rights to operate within legal bounds in the country.

Existing telcos – Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. – have been complaining that they failed to build as many towers as they need, not because of financial constraints, but because of bureaucratic red tape and other obstacles when getting permits to build cell towers.

One of the biggest problems is getting permits at the local government level, including many subdivisions that rightly or wrongly perceive cell towers as health and security issues for their communities. Getting local permits also need to be streamlined to avoid unnecessary delays.

Smart and Globe have been saying they need to get an average of 25 permits at the local government level to build a cell site and that it takes at least eight months to accomplish.

Fixing the process

Will the anointed tower companies be able to move past the aforementioned obstacles with speed and ease, which the Department of Information and Communications Technology does not have control over?

Sure, the DICT can promise permits for cellular towers within seven days, but can it mandate local governments, subdivisions – and, more importantly, the courts when private homeowners or entities file court cases contesting the plan to build a cell site in their area?

What needs to be fixed is the process. Having an anointed tower builder, or builders, is not a guarantee that all the needed 50,000 towers will be erected in the next five years.

More importantly, if the government gives preferential rights and treatment to some anointed companies, but will withhold this from Smart and Globe, doesn’t this smack of a return to the days when “favorites” were treated with deference over other competing companies?

Let the chosen tower companies of the government operate in a business environment that allows co-existence and cooperation with existing players in the telecommunications industry, and not be forced by some regulation.

We all know that preferential treatment connotes unbridled corruption, not perhaps at the start, but over time. We can even cite the possibility of operational inefficiencies over time, if corruption becomes uncontrolled.

Sweetheart deals

Existing telcos have been trying to find new locations for their cell towers for decades, especially in the more densely populated areas and cities of the country where the need for more cell sites is needed.

The years of accumulated knowledge and experience will have to be quickly gained by a new tower company if it wishes to serve the needs of existing and new telcos. Will the new companies be able to hurdle the learning curve quickly enough?

Will American Towers Corp., based in Boston, Massachusetts, be up to the challenge? The company was first to announce interest in the yet-to-be-released policy, even offering to build the towers for free (?), if the government would assure them of an income from existing and new telcos.

What business would want to spend more than P5 million on a single cell tower if there is no guarantee that they would be able to recover their investment – and tuck in some healthy profit in the process? Talk about sweetheart deals.

Adapting to new technologies faster

If there is any area that the DICT and RJ Jacinto should exert more effort on, being the guardians of the country’s telecommunications vision and answerable to half the country’s population who have been demanding for improved connectivity on the internet, it is in upgrading the current capability of existing cell sites.

Many of the old towers still rely on microwave and satellites, technologies that are no longer adequate to meet today’s smartphone users’ need for faster speeds when streaming high-definition movies.

The old towers need to be improved to fiber optics or something better that will be able to douse the rising impatience of consumers over unreliable connections and slow internet speeds. After years of hearing telcos blaming the government, explanations begin to sound like insincere excuses.

The world is moving into faster internet connectivity, and before we know it, the 4G speeds that we are always trying to track in many densely populated areas of Metro Manila will be replaced by 5G, which was globally introduced last year.

The 4G or LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard had been launched in the world in 2009, and we’re now almost past a decade of waiting in the Philippines.

Judging from the earnings that telcos have been reaping over the last few years, the amount of capital that they annually plow back to the business should be more commensurate to meeting the public’s needs and expectations.

With more Filipinos adapting to smartphones, the potential for growth in the telecommunications industry in the country is unparalleled in the ASEAN. Filipinos deserve better services and lower prices.

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