Cu recently met with Philippines president Duterte, seeking help to speed up the authorization process for the deployment of cellsites and towers. This process currently takes at least eight months, Globe said. At the same meeting, Globe’s CEO showed the president the numerous permits Globe needed to secure to build a cell site tower – 29 to 35 permits in all.
The Philippine president instructed his Cabinet officials to “take the most drastic measure you can find” to fast-track the processing of telecommunications infrastructure permits. Interior Secretary Eduardo Año informed the President that a recently signed Joint Memorandum Circular from government agencies will make the issuance of permits a lot easier, with streamlining of permits to reduce processing time to a maximum of 20 days.
Globe set its capex for 2020 to USD 1.2 billion, a large percentage of which will be used for the operator’s network deployment and capacity expansion.