The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said over the weekend it is studying a “dig once” policy to minimize road disruption and enhance cost-efficiencies.
DICT Undersecretary Jeff Dy said during Globe’s RISE 3.0 event the agency was studying a “dig once” policy, where all concerned utility services should be informed of an infrastructure project that requires a dig so that all necessary conduits and connections would be completed in one go.
This would minimize street-level disruption that aggravates traffic, he said.
“Connectivity is the lifeblood of a digital nation. Let us forge collaboration that allows us to build a digitally empowered Philippines that is inclusive, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, as directed by DICT Secretary Ivan Uy under the vision of our President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. No one gets left behind,” he said.
Dy said the government was looking at crafting policy on common towers and common poles.
Globe vice president for site lifecycle management services Mitch Ora said the Philippines needs an estimated 40,000 more towers to get to the ideal tower-user ratio.
She said Globe continued to pursue infrastructure models that would advance enhanced and more inclusive connectivity.
These include tower-sharing, which Globe already undertakes with partners; fiberco which will allow quick upgrades of old copper wires into fiber in homes and buildings; and the in-building neutral host sharing model, which allows the sharing of indoor antennas.
PhilTower Consortium president and chief executive Devid Gubiani said the Philippines lagged behind its Asian neighbors in terms of tower-user ratio, which greatly affects user experience.
He said with 17,850 cell sites serving 76 million internet users in the Philippines, 4,258 people share connectivity from a single tower. In comparison, the ratio is one tower to 1,554 people in Indonesia, one to 711 in Vietnam and one to 408 in China.
“We need more hands on deck. Shared infrastructure is key to providing ubiquitous connectivity. We can potentially enable much better service for more FIlipinos but also a much broader coverage. It’s about depth and it’s about coverage,” Gubiani said.
The Philippine Statistics Authority said just over half or 56.1 percent of Filipino households could access the internet at home in 2023.
Statistics from a 2020 study of Thinking Machines and the Asian Development Bank, meanwhile, revealed the gap in internet speeds between urban and rural areas in the Philippines, with the country’s five wealthiest cities having average speeds of 25.65 Mbps, while the five poorest cities had a significantly slower 4.62 Mbps.