DICT to temporarily stop entertaining bids of tower providers

The Department of Information and Communications (DICT) said it will not accommodate other tower firms bidding to enter the common tower sector in the country for the meantime.

"We can stop for the meantime... we will pause and take a stop if we have already overreached the capacity of the industry," DICT acting Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr. told reporters in a press briefing in Quezon City.

This came after the DICT signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with South Korea's Shinheung Telecom Co. Ltd. and local firm Alt-Global Solutions Inc. on Thursday.

Shinheung and Alt-Global are the 14th and 15th firms that signed MOU with the DICT, to fast-track the rollout of the government's common tower initiative.

The other tower providers who have signed MOUs with the DICT are ISOC Infrastructures Inc., ISON ECP Tower Pte. Ltd., IHS Holding Ltd., edotco Group Sdn Bhd, China Energy Equipment Co. Ltd., RT Telecom Sdn Bhd., Aboitiz InfraCapital Inc., MGS Construction Inc., Frontier Tower Associates Management Pte. Ltd., the consortium of Global Networks Inc. (GNI) and JTower Inc., American Tower Corp., J.S. Cruz Construction and Development Inc., and Desarrollos Terrestres Towers.

Under the MOUs, the DICT agreed to assist the tower providers in securing regulatory approvals once they secured agreements with telecommunication companies to build a cell site. The MOUs are valid for a year.

"We think that 15 might be too much but we really have no idea how many the industry can accommodate. Maybe out of 15, the industry can only accommodate four or five," Rio said, noting that there are three more firms who expressed intent to sign similar MOUs with the DICT.

"They may not be accommodated in the first year," he said as he declined to identify the companies.

The government is bent on implementing a common tower policy to reduce the cost of telecommunications services by freeing telcos from costly expenditures in building their own towers or cell sites.

The towers will be shared by telco operators, like PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. as well as the third telco player Mislatel Consortium.

Rio said the Philippines needs around 50,000 cell sites for the telcos to provide adequate service across the country.

The towers will be built by common tower companies at no cost to the government, and the cell sites will be leased by the telcos.

"But this is a market force thing, it is not the government who will choose. It will be the clientele, which are the three telcos," Rio said.

The DICT chief said the agency may entertain more tower firms after a year or if there is a demand for more tower providers.

"We have a trial period of one year," Rio said.

The DICT earlier said the planned common tower policy is on track to be finalized in the second quarter of the year.  —LDF, GMA News