DITO clarifies commercial roll-out will happen March 2021

Third telco player DITO Telecommunity Corporation on Thursday clarified that its commercial roll-out or the onboarding of subscribers will happen by March 2021 and not in July this year.

In a press chat in Taguig City, DITO chief administrative officer Adel Tamano said the March 2021 commercial roll-out is mandated in its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN).

“March 2021 is really the mandated date by the NTC [National Telecommunications Commission]” Tamano said.

Meanwhile, the July 2020 deadline of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is its “technical launch.”

During the so-called technical launch, Tamano said, the NTC will audit its compliance with its commitment to cover 37% of the country’s population with 27 megabits per second (mbps).

This means the government will check if DITO’s network is ready as it put in place 1,600 towers by July this year.

“In our CPCN, the July 18, 2020 refers to our technical launch, which means that we have to have the entire network set and the government will audit us if we are reaching our commitment of 37% coverage and 27 mbps. That is only a technical launch... that is not a commercial launch,” Tamano said.

To date, DITO chief technology officer Rodolfo Santiago said the company has so far installed 600 towers.

The towers are a mix of company-owned and common towers.

With this, Tamano said the telco is on track to meet its July deadline.

By September 2020, DITO will begin its pre-commercial trials.

However, Tamano said there is a possibility that the company can commercially launch after the September trials.

“We want all the underlying things to be ironed out for customers before the commercial launch. Everything is set up, get all sales people, we could launch,” he said.

DITO Telecommunity received its certificate of public convenience and necessity from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) last July 2019 to operate as the third major telco. — MDM/BM, GMA News