Manuel Pangilinan, CEO of PLDT, told reporters that the company was open to sharing new towers but did not want to share existing infrastructure.
He said: “At this time, we don’t see any benefit or need to share any of our existing network elements, including our towers.”
Globe’s CFO Rizza Maniego-Eala last week told reporters that CEO Ernest Cu had been looking for collaboration with PLDT.
Cu “has been trying to convince our competitor to have a tower sharing venture”, she said, in order to avoid duplication. “Today our towers are quite duplicative so where we have a tower, they have a tower, vice versa,” she said last week.
Ray Espinosa, PLDT’s chief corporate services officer, said “I don’t think we need to unload these [existing] towers.” He added, according to reports from the Philippines: “New towers, we’re willing, but it must be towers where our network is being rolled out. We cannot just base our stations in areas where Globe says this is where we build up the cellular towers. It has to be consistent with our network design and network rollout.”
The Philippines government has been in favour of persuading Globe and PLDT to share towers. Espinosa said PLDT opposed that policy. “These towers belong to us and are purpose-built.”
