Dabawenyo tycoon Dennis Uy’s DITO Telecommunity Corporation, the country’s third major telecommunications provider, is eyeing to install 237 towers in Davao City alone.
DITO is the third telco player next to Globe and Smart.
Retired Major General Rodolfo Santiago, chief technology officer of DITO, said in an email interview that part of the company’s push to meet its March 2021 commercial launch, the company is targeting a total of 237 towers for Davao City alone and out of this number, 79 are already fully mobilized.
According to him, this is currently being done in partnership with the company’s vendors, Nokia – Huaxin and Udenna Infrastructure.
DITO (formerly known as Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company, Inc., or Mislatel) is the newest major telecommunications provider in the Philippines. It is a Joint Venture Company comprised of Udenna Corporation, Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corp., and China Telecommunications Corporation.
He added that for the entire Mindanao, DITO is looking at a total of 880 towers, including the 237 Davao towers for Phase 1 roll-out together with China Communication Services Philippines Corporation (CCSPC) and the two other mentioned DITO vendors for the area.
Presently, the company is into land acquisitions for the locations for the construction of DITO infrastructure such as towers, base stations and oher similar structures in time for its rollout and launch.
DITO has appointed four duly authorized representatives (vendors) to assist in site acquisition namely Huawei for North Luzon and the National capital Region, ZTE for south Luzon and the Visayas, Nokia-Huaxin for Mindanao, and Udenna Infrastructure .
These vendors and their agents have been provided authorization letters and identification. A memorandum will be provided to the landowners and this memorandum contains specific details pertaining to rental fees, rental escalation, conditions and other contractual terms.
The DITO site acquisition team or the vendors or any of its representatives and agents check and validate documents provided by the landowners before they go into contract signing.
DITO is committed to providing Filipinos superior products and services of world-class quality, enabling customers to be connected, anytime, anywhere, any way they prefer. It also aims to begin commercial operations in March 2021.
