By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat

Davao-born Tier1 consortium yesterday filed its bid for the third telco player slot as it has commenced building its new network starting in the rural area specifically in Mindanao with a promise to offer rates of as much as 20 percent lower than the current duopoly.

In a statement, the consortium said installation of the first tower is expected to be completed by end of first quarter this month.

The consortium, composed of Tier1, Nokia, Parallel Wireless, Millawave Broadband, and Onyx Connect, said they filed yesterday their bid before the Department of Information, Communications and Technology (DICT). This makes the Tier1 the first proponent to submit their offer to become the third telco player in the country.

Among the criteria set by the government is for the third telco player to start in rural areas; congressional franchise; must deploy a new network before end of first quarter 2018; and have a combined net worth of $200 million.

The company said they complied with these rules set by the President last year and the DICT saying,“When the president speaks we need to pay attention.”

The consortium’s first tower was deployed on March 26, 2018, located in Sultan Kudarat. Tier1, which is 70 percent Philippine-owned consortium, holds both regional and national franchises.

In doing so, they claimed to have “complied with the instructions of the President as set forth in his speech November 2017 and in the rules as set forth by the Department of Information, Communications and Technology.”

Tier1 Chairman Jonathon B. Stevens said they heeded the President’s pronouncement on the timelines, which were set last year.

“The timelines were set last year and it was clear that there would be no extension, so we maximized our efforts to file in time,” said Stevens.

Aside from the timelines, Stevens noted that President Duterte also said in a speech last year that the Philippines has about 50,000 towers less than Vietnam, “So, we took this as an instruction to correct this deficiency and our consortium partner NOKIA has committed to 50,000 Small Cell / Data Towers over the next 5-7 years.”

Of the committed 50,000 towers, over 100 towers have been pre-booked with Tier1 for installation by government agencies, financial institutions, rural schools, hospitals and private sector, and others, for installation by fourth quarter 2018. These towers will cover a population of over a million Filipinos.

At present, Steven said the consortium has 25 existing towers, covering greater Metro Manila with excess capacity and bandwidth on these towers. With commitment from NOKIA to provide Vendor financing, Tier1 can retrofit these towers with NOKIA Small Cell technology to cover 10 million people in the next 6 months.

“This complies with the requirement of the third player to cover 15 percent of the population in the first twelve months,” Stevens said in the statement.

Stevens also stated, “In complying with the requirements set down by DICT OIC BGen Eliseo Rio Jr, an important issue raised was speed, so we conducted double tests to reveal speeds of our competitors as low as 2mbps, or 18Mbps and Tie1 consortium partner Millawave at 180 Mbps.”

To address the issue of cost, Tier said it has contracted government departments to provide high speed data at 15-20 percent lower than the rates of existing duopoly Smart and Globe.

“Our consortium has also entered into discussions with USA cable provider for dark fibre in order to build a landing station in Davao City and a State of the Art Data Storage Center and a new and independent National BroadBand Optic Fiber network in fact work on the new network will commence fourth quarter 2018 and will significantly lower the cost of fiber for data and B2B connectivity,” the statement added.

In addition, it said that Tier1 consortium member Onyx Connect, a Google Partner, which has two cellphone and device making factories in South Africa and one in China, will also begin manufacturing cellphones, tablets and laptops under the Tier1 marketing brand “Dot Mobile”by third quarter 2018, employing as many as 200 skilled workers in Davao Directly, and as many as 10,000 down line personnel agents to launch the Davao Based “Dot Mobile”Brand.

Tier1 will also lead a break through the digital divide with its Digital Brain, this device is an off line cached portable storage centerwhich will be installed in schools, and enable the students to download , view or research FOR FREE , WorldBook, Wikipedia , Khan Academy, Ted Talks and thousands of other documentaries, the “Digital Brain can also contain, the entire Philippine school curriculum and data streams at 65Mbps and can reach an area of 100 meters or more. The Digital Brain is on 24/7 and requires no connectivity other than a midnight 2 minute burst to transit teachers reports to Dep Ed in Manila.

Consortium CEO Simon Fjell said Tier1 will deploy the newest micro data V-Sat towers for remote locations and Islands and are cost effective to as little as 500 persons. The introduction of these micro towers will enable the inhabitants to watch movies, communicate, and be included in emergency transmissions issued by the government.

“We have devices that will extend the range of a cell phone for as much as 40 kms, and costs no more than a cell phone and can be shares by many users,” Fjell said.

This will help the education of children especially those located in remote areas.

“Education is the foundation of the Philippines future economy, Filipino children deserve the same digital diverse education as do the Japanese Korean and Chinese children, but the geography many times makes this impractical,” he said.