It appears that Dito Telcommunity will only be available in major cities in the country on its first year of operations. The third telco admitted that serving remote areas would be “challenging” because of the time limitations that it currently faces as well as the problems brought on by the pandemic during their franchise renewal hearing in the Senate with Sen. Grace Poe. Dito’s current franchise will expire in 2023, and the company is looking to renew it for another 25 years.
During the hearing, the Senator challenged the budding telco to fulfill their commitment to cover 37 percent of the population during its first year of operations. Dito committed to serving 7,435 villages on its first year of commercial operations with a minimum speed of 27 Mbps.
According to Dito Telecom Chief Technology Officer Rodolfo Santiago, the company’s initial focus would be on more populated areas, as it would be the most efficient way to fulfill their 37 percent population coverage requirement for their franchise.
His statement was confirmed by a report by Asia-Pacific industry think tank, CreatorTech. Dito Telecoms is currently focused on covering heavily populated areas particularly Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao City. This would leave “unserved and underserved” regions without decent internet service.
Poe said that Dito must first prove that it is capable of fulfilling the terms of its obligations and meet end-user expectations before its franchise is renewed.
