The newest major entrant to the Philippines’ mobile market, DITO Telecommunity, has asserted that it has “enough” funding to take on the longstanding duopoly of PLDT and Globe Telecom.
DITO is a consortium composed of Chelsea Logistics Holdings, China Telecom Corp and Udenna Corp. It has been granted PHP25.3 billion (USD500 million) by the Bank of China to support its first year of operations.
Chief Administrative Officer Adel Tamano underlined the operator’s ambitions, saying that DITO planned to deploy 1600 cell towers and rooftop installations by July this year. It has already constructed 600 cell sites and is “confident” that it could build 5000 with its available funding.
“There are rumours that we don’t have resources for the rollout”, said Tamano, before noting that the funding from Bank of China was “enough for the first year requirement.” He added that while DITO was aiming to invest PHP303 billion into the deployment, the operator could “exceed” this amount.
To comply with the licence conditions, DITO will need to achieve 37% coverage by July, offering speeds of 27Mbps at a minimum. Tamano noted that the operator would stress test the network in September ahead of the full commercial launch in March 2021.
