MANILA, July 28 (Xinhua) -- DITO Telecommunity, the Philippines' third major telco, on Tuesday said that it is on track to meet the commercial rollout by March 2021.
DITO chief administrative officer Adel Tamano said the company is "currently working on meeting the 27mbps and 37-percent coverage in time for the government technical audit come January 2021."
"As DITO Telecommunity hastens its rollout in time for March 2021, let me assure the Filipino people that we recognize the clamor for the third major telco to already go on-air," Tamano said in a statement.
He added that DITO, a consortium of Philippine partner Udenna Corp., its unit Chelsea Logistics Holdings and China Telecom, "is doing all it can to work through the challenges, move forward, and launch soonest."
The statement came a day after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte called on the country's two giant telecommunications companies Globe Telecom and PLDT to improve their services by December.
DITO had expected to launch its commercial rollout on July 8, but the company earlier said it would not be able to meet the previous schedule due to the delay in the completion of the required number of cell sites.
The company said the strict coronavirus lockdown measures imposed in mid-March to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic caused the delay, adding the lockdown restricted the movement of the builders.
DITO won a government-led bidding exercise in 2018 to introduce new competition with the current duopoly rivals Globe and PLDT to boost the country's telecom services. Enditem
