The Philippines’ third major telco, DITO Telecommunity Corporation disclosed that they had successfully made non-hybrid, pure, standalone 5G video and regular calls this month — to and within the National Capital Region, South Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
This was revealed by DITO Chief Technology Officer, Major General Rodolfo Santiago (Ret) during an online media briefing last 29 October 2020. “The current 5G being rolled out by others in the country is non-standalone. This means that they ride on the core 4G network, an enhancement of 4G systems which offer a faster alternative to 4G on existing legacy systems; very different from the standalone 5G or pure that DITO is rolling out,” according to Gen. Santiago.
“This also means that standalone 5G offers more capacity in terms of bandwidth and is more suitable for 5G applications, and our partner ChinaTel is the known global leader in standalone 5G technology and the world’s largest broadband internet network with a diversified customer base of 900 million users,” added by DITO’s CTO.
The new telco also shared that as of 28 October 2020, a total of 1,532 towers were erected by their independent contractors — more than enough to cover 37% of the population as required by the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) issued by the government. As of the end of September 2020, DITO reported having just 859 towers constructed.
On Track for March 2021 Commercial Operations
DITO Telecommunity Chief Administrative Officer, Atty. Adel Tamano gave affirmation that they are on track for the commercial operations of the new telco by March 2021.
“Expectations are indeed high for the incoming telco player to bring innovative and cutting-edge mobile technologies to the country and in the past few months, we have observed that more and more Filipinos want to connect with DITO, so we opened a number of avenues for us to gather our community online,” said Atty. Tamano.
During the same forum, DITO also announced that the construction of their signature stores in key malls nationwide has already begun a few months back. A few days ago, the DITO signature store in Robinson’s Galleria South in San Pedro, Laguna was inspected by the telco’s CTO. The location is DITO’s pilot in-building solutions project that allows them to amplify 4G and 5G signal within the entire mall.
“We are excited to say that all these disclosures plus in just about 160 days, DITO Telecommunity will be ready to provide world-class connectivity that Filipinos truly deserve,” Atty. Tamano added.