GLOBE TELECOM, Inc. has signed its third agreement for shareable telecommunications towers with a wholly owned subsidiary of global infrastructure firm American Tower Corp. (ATC).
In a statement Tuesday, the Ayala-led telco said it inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ATC’s Transcend Towers Infrastructure (Philippines), Inc. to build 150 cell sites in North Luzon.
This comes after the company signed a similar agreement with the joint venture of edotco Group Sdn Bhd and ISOC Infrastructure, Inc. in June for 150 towers in Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon (Calabarzon); and with the tandem of Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc. and Frontier Tower Associates Philippines for a yet-to-be-determined number of towers in July.
“There is a significant need to accelerate our infrastructure build for our customers to fully enjoy the benefit of a digital lifestyle,” Globe Chief Finance Officer Rizza Maniego-Eala was quoted in the statement as saying.
The government is pushing for network operators such as Globe, Smart Communications, Inc. and new industry player Dito Telecommunity Corp. to tap independent tower providers for their telco infrastructure needs.
As opposed to the current practice of operators where they build towers only they can use, building common towers will allow cell sites to be shared by more than one tenant.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) earlier said it wants 50,000 common towers to be built in the next seven to 10 years in order for the country to catch up with the tower density in neighboring countries like Vietnam.
It said every tower in the country caters to more than 7,000 subscribers, against the ideal 1,000 subscribers per tower, and the usual 2,000 subscribers per tower in countries with faster internet.
Tapping independent tower providers is expected to speed up the rollout of cell sites across the country as the DICT committed to support these providers in securing regulatory permits from the national and local government.
The bureaucratic process in obtaining these permits — which reaches about 25 separate documents to put up one tower — is what network operators blame to be the cause of delay in tower rollout.
Globe also said previously that partnering with independent tower providers will help it save some of its capital expenditures, which may be invested in building active telecommunications infrastructure instead.
Shares in Globe went down P58 or 3.08% to P1,826 apiece on Tuesday. — Denise A. Valdez
