Globe Telecom Inc. said Monday it is seeking partnership with local government units in building telecommunications infrastructure nationwide.
Globe, a unit of Ayala Corp., wants to rationalize the permitting process to mitigate bureaucratic red tape and other political hurdles standing in the way of deploying telecommunication infrastructure such as cell sites and fiber optic cables.
If implemented, the partnership would enable the company to improve data connectivity at lower rates.
Globe chief commercial officer Albert de Larrazabal said the existing telecommunication infrastructure in a given locality, or lack of it, was often a direct result of the LGU permitting environment.
“Securing different permits at LGU level could be very challenging, from the sheer number of permits to the different political personalities that mobile operators have to deal with,” de Larrazabal said.
He added it took at least eight months to complete the permitting process, involving around 25 permits.
“We would like to call on our local government executives to partner with us in ushering the Philippines to become a digital nation,” de Larrazabal said.
He said the city government of Manila was the first to respond to the company’s call for support, allowing the telecommunications operator to roll out fiber broadband technology in Binondo, providing world-class internet experience with speeds of up to 1 GBps to the world’s oldest Chinatown. The project will be completed in the third quarter of the year.
Secretary Rodolfo Salalima of the Department of Information and Communications Technology said the agency would draft an executive order to President Rodrigo Duterte, directing LGUs to process and approve permits and applications of all telecommunications company within three days from submission.
Early this year, Globe launched a plan to create an internet superhighway nationwide. The plan aims to deploy fiber optics in 20,000 barangay by 2020 to provide ultra-fast internet access to around 2 million homes nationwide. Globe plans to deploy fiber optics in 1,000 sites before the end the year. So far, deployment of fiber optics has been completed in about 300 sites.
One of the most important advances in broadband technology, fiber optics offer the fastest way to access data, providing consumers with higher download and uploads speeds, lower latency and faster internet browsing, Slalima said.
He said Globe annual investments for its network had steadily increased over the years, reaching around $600 million in 2015, with the company allotting around 30 percent of its revenue for capital expenditure in the last two years.