DITO Telecommunity Corp. plans to infuse a higher investment for its network infrastructure next year as it expands its coverage to missionary areas by rolling out satellite technology and fiber optic networks.
DITO’s third technical audit as a new telecom player started last week.
Adel Tamano, DITO chief administrative officer, said he is confident the company will pass the audit as it now covers 70 percent of the population and has presence in over 600 cities and municipalities nationwide.
With this, DITO is ready to compete head-to-head with the incumbent telcos in the fourth generation (4G) and fifth generation (5G) markets, Tamano said.
Rodolfo Santiago, DITO chief technology officer, said the company is in talks with a satellite technology provider as it will expand its coverage to missionary areas by next year, as part of its commitment to cover 80 percent of the population.
Santiago declined to give details on the actual investment to be made next year, but he said it would be higher per infrastructure or tower compared to this year.
“Definitely it would be higher, it would require some additional technology, satellite technology, if the submarine that would be connecting them would be very challenging. It would be a higher investment per tower,” Santiago said.
DITO’s subscriber base has reached over 10 million this month, a significant improvement from last year’s one million subscribers. Tamano said the company is confident to exceed its 12 million mobile subscribers target by year-end.
DITO has also achieved 9 percent market share with the continued expansion of its network and subscribers.
“We can go head-to-head to grab market share in the 4G market segment. We are more than 600 cities and municipalities. We will achieve more than 800 cities and municipalities by end of the year,” Santiago said.
DITO’s presence, combined with regulatory changes, spurred investments across major telecom players’ network infrastructure, benefitting millions of Filipino consumers as these boosted 4G and 5G connections.
Before the third telco player’s commercial launch, the Philippines’ 4G median download speed stood at 11.15 Megabits per second (Mbps) in the first quarter of 2021, according to Ookla’s recent report.
It improved to 15.53 Mbps in the first three months of 2022, almost a year after DITO started its operations.
Ookla also said DITO, despite being a new entrant, already had the best 4G availability in the January to March period, with a score of 91.2 percent.
