China-backed third telco DITO sets land acquisition guidelines for tower, cell sites use

MANILA - DITO Telecommunity said Friday locations for its facilities have been pre-determined as it released guidelines for land acquisition to be used for its tower sites and base stations.

The guidelines were released to assist landowners who will sell or rent their properties needed by the third telco player to rollout its services by March 2021.

In a statement, the third telco said it has appointed 4 authorized representatives to assist in site acquisitions namely:

• Huawei for North Luzon and the National Capital Region
• ZTE for South Luzon and the Visayas
• Nokia - Huaxin for Mindanao
• Udenna Infrastructure

Authorized vendors have proper identification and authorization letters. These are properly disclosed to respective local government units, it said.

"We wish to inform the public that the locations for the construction of DITO infrastructure in time for its roll-out and launch have already been predetermined and were included in the plan submitted to the Philippine government even before July of 2019," the telco said.

The public is advised of the following when transacting with DITO authorized agents:

• A memorandum is provided to the landowner, which contains rental fees, conditions and other terms
• DITO teams or vendors check and validate documents provided by land owner
• Contract signing is the last step
• DITO or its representatives "never promise" a lumpsum rental payment to landowners. It only provides a maximum of 3 months advance on monthly rentals
• DITO or its agents will never request for processing fees from landowners
• DITO or its agents never ask for commissions

DITO committed to build at least 1,300 towers in its first year, to cover at least 37 percent of the population. The sites are needed for tower structures.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana earlier said it recently signed a deal allowing the telco to build cell towers within military camps.

"We wish to assure the public that anyone caught misrepresenting themselves as employees or representatives of DITO Telecommunity or any of its vendors will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," it said.

DITO is a consortium of Dennis Uy's Udenna Corp and Chelsea Logistics with China Telecom.

The third telco is building its network to challenge the duopoly of Globe Telecom and PLDT Inc with its commercial launch set in March 2021.

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