My order to the Cabinet now is to really take the most drastic measures that they can find,” the president said. In cell sites alone, around 18,000 towers shared by the country’s duopoly are powering 30.4 million mobile phone owners as of 2017, according to latest data from Statista, a data provider. To compare, Thailand has around 60,000 cell sites for 26.5 million phone owners. In addition to a third player, the government is also behind plans to build common telco towers, which aim to remove the burden of constructing cell sites from telco players to specifically-designated tower companies to speed up building. Shares at PLDT rose 1.82% on Thursday to close at P1,340 apiece, while those of Globe traded 2.18% at P2,064 each.

Source: Philippine Star July 31, 2020 04:57 UTC