The Philippines’ new third telco DITO Telecommunity Corp (formerly Mislatel) has inked separate deals with local telecoms infrastructure providers LCS Holdings and Sky Cable to help accelerate the rollout of its new services across the country. The tie-up with LCS Holdings – a venture backed by Filipino politician Luis Chavit Singson – will see DITO leasing capacity on shared telco towers that the former is aiming to build in ‘key areas’ of the Philippines, Business Mirror reports. Separately, meanwhile, the third telco has struck a deal with broadband provider Sky Cable to utilise unused fibre-optic cables within Metro Manila.
DITO won the third telecoms operating franchise in late 2018 but has yet to announce when it will begin offering services over its fledgling network. Under the terms of the award, the newcomer is required to cover around 37% of the Philippines with a minimum mobile broadband speed of 27Mbps in year one, through a PHP150 billion (USD2.89 billion) capital expenditure outlay, rising to 84% by year five, by which time it has committed to spend a total of PHP257 billion.
Commenting on the latest developments, DITO chief admin officer Adel A Tamano said: ‘These two deals allow DITO to tap reliable local partners and their existing telecommunication infrastructure assets to support our network rollout, without having to build everything from scratch; done to ensure that we soon deliver on our promise of faster, more affordable, and most important secure internet connectivity for our countrymen.’