Telecom Tower Watch – Pushing Nationwide Digital Infrastructure Development
March 15, 2021The demand for bigger and better digital infrastructure projects has gone significantly higher as more users depend on the internet not just for work and school, but as the primary source of information, socializing platforms, a myriad of business transactions, and entertainment.
According to the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking in 2020, the Philippines placed 10th highest for investment in telecommunication led by the private telecommunications companies in the Philippines. But this aggressive capital spending will not be enough to keep up with the exponential rise in demand for fast and reliable broadband services.
We must engage in strategic partnerships between multiple sectors of society to steadily improve the country’s digital infrastructure. As this pandemic showed the importance of a whole-of-society approach, it is more so important now for the government and private sector to work together to achieve new heights in the telecommunication sector.
Furthermore, as private telecommunications companies are aggressively spending to expand and improve its networks, the government must step in to invest in a nationwide broadband backbone that will integrate with tower and fiber assets of private telcos.
This broadband backbone will be a long-term infrastructure asset that will help boost the country’s competitiveness in an emerging digital economy to help it survive, rebound, and sustain renewed growth.
In the spirit of an all-of-society approach to recover from this crisis, CitizenWatch Philippines in partnership with the Department of Information and Communications Technology have launched Telecom Tower Watch, an initiative that will primarily monitor and engage the digital ecosystem in consultations and find solutions to remove barriers that are delaying the development of telecommunications and other digital infrastructure projects.
This joint intervention will conduct an online awareness campaign that will provide transparency on ongoing telecommunications infrastructure projects and will host a series of consultative meetings that would gather government, private sector, and other stakeholders to tackle issues, find solutions, and align strategies towards the fast expansion and upgrading of the country’s digital infrastructure.
CitizenWatch supports the DICT’s continuing efforts to change policies that unnecessarily delay the building of digital infrastructure projects. Accelerating digital transformation will promote investments which will foster economic revival and unleash the country’s digital potential to become a key player in a digitized global economy.
We stand with Filipino consumers in supporting the call for the government to work with the private sector for economic progress. We call for an all-of-society approach in fostering a future-proofed Philippines thru the integration of digital technologies.