Rio wants common tower policy in place by end-2018

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) hopes to finalize the common tower policy by the end of the year.

In an interview with reporters on the sidelines of a Senate hearing Tuesday, Acting Information and Communications Technology Secretary Eliseo Rio said the common tower policy is expected to be finalized by the end of 2018.

“Minamadali rin namin because we would want a common tower rollout by January.” Rio told reporters in Pasay City.

The plan is to have the policy in place by December, Rio noted.

The planned common tower policy envisions to free telecommunications companies from costly capital expenditures in building communication towers.

“We are still sorting it out with RJ kasi siya ang nabigyan ng mandato ng President to come out with the common towers, pero ‘yung kaniyang pinipilit na common tower policy is maraming nag-oobject,” Rio noted.

RJ Jacinto is the Presidential Adviser on Economic Affairs and Information and Communications Technology.

Jacinto earlier proposed to accredit only two tower companies.

Under a draft policy, tower companies are independent of mobile network operators and the telcos must not own any equity in the tower firms to promote tower sharing, non-discriminatory access, uniformity, and transparency in the leasing arrangements.

In September, Jacinto got into a heated argument with Globe Telecom Inc. legal counsel Froilan Castelo who opposed the proposal.

"We do not see how an independent tower company can alleviate or ease out the problems that we are fixing. They are private companies, the same as us, and they are going to face the same problems,” Castelo said back then.

Globe has secured an approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last August to set up its own company that will build telecommunications towers.

“The objective here is to build more cell sites. How can you build more in unserved and underserved areas? It should not be limited to two exclusive companies,” said Froilan on Tuesday.

Smart Communications Inc. also opposed the draft MC.

“Smart cannot be prohibited from constructing their own telecommunications towers,” it said in a position paper earlier released to reporters.

Limiting the tower companies to two is the bone of contention, Rio noted, citing the legal opinion of the Solicitor General and the position of the Philippine Competition Commission.
The commission is really against it because setting limits on the number of companies is anti-competitive and ignores the telcos’ franchise, Rio said.

The telecommunications franchise authorizes companies to set up and build their own infrastructure in pursuit of business. —VDS, GMA News