The government and the private sector have strengthened their partnership to address the internet connectivity gap in the country and further improve services.
In a report released in 2023, the Philippine Statistics Authority said just over half or 56 percent of Filipino households can access the internet at home.
A Philippine Institute for Development Studies paper in 2021, meanwhile, showed access to fiber optic cable was available in only 29 percent of barangays across the country, with rural barangays making up a meager 12 percent of these fiber-connected areas.
In a statement, Mitch Ora, Globe Telecom vice president for site lifecycle management services, said the Philippines needs an estimated 40,000 more towers to get to the ideal tower-user ratio.
She said Globe continues to pursue infrastructure models that will advance enhanced and more inclusive connectivity. These include tower-sharing, which Globe already undertakes with partners; fiberco that 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.
Devid Gubiani, PhilTower Consortium president and chief executive officer (CEO), said the Philippines lags behind its Asian neighbors in terms of tower-user ratio, which greatly affects user experience.
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 during the recent Globe’s RISE 3.0 event.
Undersecretary Jeff Dy of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said the government is looking at crafting policy on common towers and common poles.
He said the DICT is also studying a “Dig Once” Policy, where all concerned utility services must be informed of an infrastructure project that requires a dig so that all necessary conduits and connections will be completed in one go. This minimizes street-level disruption that aggravates traffic.
“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… No one gets left behind,” he said.
At Globe’s RISE 3.0 event, representatives from the government, technology and real property industries discussed how to expand connectivity and improve customer experience given current barriers.
“The government is doing its share, alleviating requirements and permits and giving incentives. We need members of the private sector who are very much interested in furthering the connectivity agenda. It’s only by working together that we can come up to speed with other countries out there that are truly digital,” said Ernest Cu, Globe president and CEO.
“Our goal is to cover the entire country for the Philippines to be really called a digital nation and to be able to say that we can provide the kind of services that are streamlined and digitalized in order to fight corruption in the process,” said Anti-Red Tape Authority Secretary Ernesto Perez.
