28 November 2024

A group of mobile network operators in the Philippines has urged the government to subsidise up to 50GB of monthly data to families in rural communities.

The proposal was presented by the Connectivity Plan Task Force (CPTF) to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in an attempt to boost the usage of base stations in remote areas.

Local firm Globe Telecom president and CEO Ernest Cu, representing the CPTF, raised this to President Marcos during their discussions on plans to construct new mobile towers in ‘geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas’ (GIDAs) where internet connectivity has not yet reached.

According to Cu, a key challenge of deploying towers in rural areas is that they’re generally not profitable unless they’re used enough by customers — which means that it is necessary to maximise the use of existing towers before setting up new ones.

Under the proposal, rural households would be provided with SIM cards that have an automatic allocation of 50GB of data per month for a year. The CPTF said that this would be sufficient to meet the internet needs of a typical household with five members.

In addition to data subsidies, the CPTF also urged the government to reduce operational costs for telecom operators by lowering or eliminating spectrum user fees which have averaged $96 million annually from 2018-2022. This would help operators expand their services to underserved areas.