Exclusive villages pose hurdles to telco buildup

By Luis Leoncio

The refusal of exclusive villages in Metro Manila to allow the installation of cell sites within their respective areas has hampered efforts to improve the coverage and internet experience of subscribers, according to telecommunications companies Smart Communications, Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc.

Just last month, Smart provided the House of Representatives a list of 100 villages/subdivisions in Metro Manila that opposed the construction of cell sites within their jurisdiction.

Among those on the list were Alabang Hills, Ayala Alabang, Greenmeadows, Loyola Grand Villas, Xavierville, Valle Verde, White Plains, St. Ignatius, McKinley Hills, One McKinley Place, BF Homes, Better Living, Bel-Air, Dasmarinas Village, Forbes Park, Multinational, Capitol Hills, Ferndale, Corinthian Gardens, Montgomery Place, North Greenhills, Horseshoe, Phil-Am Homes, Tierra Pura, Filinvest Homes, and Hillsborough.

The list was part of the additional documentary requirements submitted by Smart to the House of Representatives’s Committee on Legislative Franchises as the telco applied for the extension/renewal of its legislative franchise.

Globe, for its part, also recently informed the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) that several villages rejected outright their request to build additional facilities within their subdivisions.

These villages included Bel-Air, Corinthian Gardens, Dasmarinas, North Greenhills, Greenmeadows, New Manila, BF Resort, BF Homes, BF Almanza, Moonwalk, Philamlife, Horeshoe, Greenwood Executive, Better Living, Tahanan, and St. Ignatius.

In another letter to NTC Commissioner Gamaliel Cordova last July, Smart reported that the operation of an Outdoor Distributed Antenna System (Odas) in La Vista subdivision in Quezon City was stopped by a cease-and-desist order from the city’s Department of Building Official (DBO) on February 7 this year.

Odas is a technical solution usually applied to villages and subdivisions to improve connectivity.

Smart said that while its BUILD Department obtained the consent of the owners of the land where the Odas was installed, it had to accede to the cease-and-desist order from the Quezon City DBO, which was based on a complaint filed by certain people.

Smart’s and Globe’s submission of documents came after a recent Senate hearing conducted by Sen. Paolo Benigno Aquino IV wherein stumbling blocks in telcos’ rollout of much-needed infrastructure aimed at improving internet speed were identified.

In that hearing of the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship, Aquino reiterated that more cell sites were needed to improve connectivity and internet service in the country.

While they agreed with Aquino, Smart’s representative lamented that village and building officials automatically oppose the idea of building the facilities without really giving the telcos the chance to explain the processes and equipment needed.

Apart from issues with homeowners associations, telcos also cited difficulties in dealing with local government units (LGUs), which only prolong the installation of cell sites.

Representatives of telcos related that an average of 25 LGU permits were needed for a single cell site to be put up and the processing of these permits usually took around eight months to finish.

Three more months were needed to build the actual facility, thus, it would take nearly a year to have one cell site operational, they said.

Globe’s representative said that in 2015 the company allocated a budget for more than 1,000 additional cell sites.

The actual output was just less than 50 percent of their target.

Permits for all the rest are still pending with the LGUs to date. Based on a February 2016 study of TowerXchange, the number of unique physical cell sites in the Philippines is one of the lowest in Asia, with a combined 15,000 cell sites.

China has the highest number with 1.18 million cell sites, followed by India (450,000), Indonesia (76,477), Vietnam (55,000), Thailand (52,483), Pakistan (28,000), Bangladesh (27,000), and Malaysia (22,000).

The Philippines ranked just above Cambodia, which has 9,000 cell sites, Myanmar (7,620) and Sri Lanka (7,000).

Manila most problematic

Globe earlier said Metro Manila poses the most problem in the deployment of new cell sites with main issues ranging from social acceptability, neighbors’ opposition and homeowners associations’ restrictions due to aesthetic reasons, family conflicts and political bickering among local government officials, Globe Telecom said.

Globe plans to build more cell sites in Metro Manila as part of its initiative to continue building on its network capacities for faster internet experience of its customers nationwide.

“Metro Manila is critical in the deployment of new cell sites as many of our customers are also concentrated in this area.

However, there is a myriad of issues that restrains realization of our plans to establish more cell sites in the area and improve the internet experience of our customers” said Joel Agustin, Globe senior vice president for Program Governance, Network Technical Group.

For instance, many home owners oppose the deployment of cell sites in their villages due to a perceived health risk.

To this, Agustin said the World Health Organization, cancer.org, Unicef and the Philippine Department of Health have already addressed such concerns, emphasizing that cell sites do not pose any health hazard.

In fact, these organizations have expressed support for the use of mobile phones and the technology in their various health projects.

Agustin also said that before the installation of cell site equipment, the health department, as commissioned by the NTC, also grants permits to make sure emissions from cell sites are within set standards and not harmful to health. It is also under the discretion of the Health department to continuously monitor the emission settings of the cell-site equipment after installation.

The international exposure guidelines are set by the International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

Further, political squabbling when local government executives are from opposing parties as well as lack of property documentations and a host of other issues hamper deployment of new cell sites.

These issues include imposition of tower fees prior to processing of cell site permit application; required tower height exceeds allowable height imposed by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, lack of proof of documentation to prove ownership; tax arrears; existing property has no permits which is a prerequisite for application of cell site permits; proposed location is a mortgaged property and the bank is not willing to issue bank consent, among others, Agustin said.

As part of its network build up, Globe is currently expanding its network coverage and capacity in various areas all over the country across all technologies, including 3G & LTE, for faster internet experience of its customers nationwide.

As a requirement for its capacity expansion drive, Globe needs to improve cell site density, a necessary prerequisite in improving data connectivity of its customers in terms of speed and access.

Telecom operators need to secure an average of 25 permits at the local government level to build a single cell site and this process takes at least 8 months to complete even before the necessary infrastructure can be built, costing an average of around P18 million per site.

In line with its thrust of building its network capacity, Globe made a call early this year for local governments to support its network infrastructure build.

The city government of Manila was the first LGU to respond to the call.

This led Globe to initiate the deployment of fiber broadband technology in Binondo, which will provide the district with world-class internet experience with speeds of up to 1Gbps.