Metro Manila poses biggest challenge to telcos, says Globe

Facing renewed pressure from the incoming administration, Globe Telecom Thursday said improving Internet services remained difficult as it was being challenged on all avenues— from both the private and public sectors—in deploying new infrastructure.

In a statement, the telco said the focus would be Metro Manila, home to more than 10 million people and the center of the country’s political and economic influence.

However, Globe said Metro Manila was the “most problematic in the deployment of new cell sites” with issues ranging from social acceptability, neighbors’ opposition and homeowners associations’ restrictions due to aesthetic reasons, family conflicts and bickering among local government officials.

“Metro Manila is critical in the deployment of new cell sites as many of our customers are concentrated in this area. However, there is a myriad of issues that restrains the realization of our plans to establish more cell sites in the area and improve the Internet experience of our customers” Joel Agustin, Globe senior vice president for program governance, network technical group, said in the statement.

Globe had outlined these problems before, but the pressure started mounting after presumptive President-elect Rodriogo Duterte issued a challenge to Globe and rival Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. to improve the country’s Internet services, criticized as among the slowest and most expensive in the region.

If not, Duterte threatened to open up the telecom market, where foreign ownership was capped at 40 percent. Duterte gave no specifics on how he would do it, but the opening up  of the market would mean increased competition, providing customers with more choice and potentially better and more affordable Internet.

Globe and PLDT both have foreign shareholders such as Singapore Telecommunications and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, respectively.

As observers noted the election of Duterte would hasten the improvement of telecom services, Globe said in its statement that the polls could even slow down the process given the transition period.

“The election of new local government officials in a given locality poses another challenge for telecom operators as it could cause delay in the processing of permits particularly in areas where the elected local official isn’t the incumbent,” Agustin said.

Aside from Metro Manila, the other “problematic” areas are Cebu, Davao, North Luzon and South Luzon. It said that about 25 permits at the local government level were needed to build a single cell site. This permitting process alone could take at least eight months to complete, Globe said.