DICT says common towers now allowed in public schools

Common towers may soon be built in public schools across the country as agreed upon by the Departments of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and of Education (DepEd), an official said Monday.

In a virtual briefing, DICT Undersecretary Emmanuel Rey "Manny" Caintic said the two departments have inked a memorandum of agreement (MOA) in a bid to boost mobile services of local telecommunications firms.

"Nagkaroon din tayo ng MOA na pinayagan na rin natin na 'yung ating public schools ay magiging common tower sites kung saan puwedeng magtayo na rin ng mga signal ang ating mga telco company," he said in a briefing with presidential spokesperson Harry Roque Jr.

(We have a MOA where we allowed public schools to have common tower sites to boost the signal of our telco companies.)

The DICT in June 2020 released the guidelines governing the sharing of telecommunications towers in a common tower policy. This was originally envisioned to be finalized by the second quarter of 2019.

The common tower policy seeks to free telcos from costly capital expenditures in building telecommunications towers.

Under the policy, the DICT would assist telecommunications companies in securing the necessary permits to put up towers, which takes as much as nine months to finish. There have been over 20 independent tower companies that have expressed their intent to build towers which they will then lease out to telecommunications companies.

"Last year we focused on the tower buildout to boost cellphone signals. This year our focus is on the fiber rollout," Caintic said in a mix of English and Filipino. —KBK, GMA News