The PLDT Group on Monday reaffirmed its commitment to support government initiatives in streamlining the permitting process for telecom infrastructure development across the country.
“PLDT and Smart continue to support the great strides accomplished by the ARTA and this administration in reducing the time, cost, requirements, and procedures of transacting with the government,” Pamela B. Felizarta, head of Joint Strategic Operations at Smart, said
“Working together, we were able to craft important policies and an executive issuance, paving the way for the faster rollout of telco infrastructure across the nation,” Felizarta said, citing key Joint Memorandum Circulars and the Executive Order No. 32 issued last year by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., which streamlined the permitting process for the construction, installation, repair, operation and maintenance of telecommunications and internet infrastructure in the country, and its implementing rules and regulations (IRR).
Since 2019, PLDT and Smart have worked closely with ARTA, agencies such as the Department of Information and Communications Technology, National Telecommunications Commission, Department of Interior and Local Government, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development, local government units, and other industry stakeholders and telcos to streamline the process of securing permits for the construction and deployment of telco infrastructure.
PLDT also supported ARTA’s telco workshops, which aimed to further address the bottlenecks in the permitting, licensing, and authorizing process to improve connectivity that led to the issuance of the guidelines for the construction and energization of distribution and associated equipment for the supply of power to telecommunications towers within the franchise of electric cooperatives, that seeks to reduce the processing time to 30 days.
PLDT is spending P75 billion to P78 billion in capital expenditures (capex) this year to expand its network nationwide.
The PLDT Group’s fiber footprint remains unparalleled and the most extensive in the Philippines. Homes reached almost 18 million in 70 percent of the country’s towns and 91 percent of provinces.
Smart’s combined 5G/4G network covers 97 percent of the population.
