23 firms accredited for common tower program

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said nearly two dozen companies would be allowed to participate in its common tower program.

In a statement, the DICT said it had granted provisional independent tower company (ITC) certificates to 23 firms.

These are Aboitiz Infracapital Inc., Acoda Towers SDN BHD, Alt-Global-Solutions Inc., Transcend Towers Infrastructure (Philippines) Inc., China Construction First Group Corp. and Wingan Construction and Development Corp., China Construction Yangtze River (M) SDN BHD, China Energy Equipment Co. Ltd, CREI Management Services FZE and Desarrollos Terrestres Inc.

Also in the list were EEI Corp., Frontier Tower Associates Philippines Inc., IHS Holding Ltd., Inforient Sdn. Bhd., ISOC EDOTCO Towers Inc., ISON Tower Ltd. Inc., J.S Cruz Construction and Development Inc., MGS Construction Inc., Phil-Tower Consortium Inc., RT Telecom SDN. BHD., Shinheung Telecom Co. Ltd., Tamoin Industrial Services Corp., Tiger Infrastructure Pte. Ltd. and UA Withya Public Company Ltd.

Information and Communications Secretary Gregorio Honasan II said the department granted licenses to companies with previous agreements with the DICT.

“We need these tower companies to continue mobilizing and building out towers now, that’s why we granted them this provisional certificate to ease their transition under the new circular,” Honasan said.

“We have to be diligent to ensure capacity of certified ITCs and we need to balance diligence with the urgency to improve our current ICT infrastructure,” he added.

Telco incumbents PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom control over 20,000 cell sites today. But the DICT said the country needs at least another 50,000 towers to improve mobile connectivity and to reach unserved or underserved areas.

More towers will decongest their mobile networks, transla­ting to better signal quality and faster internet speeds.

Together with other government agencies, the DICT also moved to slash the permitting process that used to take 200 days to only about two weeks.