In the Philippines, it is not a secret that the country lags behind its southeast asian neighbors in terms of infrastructure. Not only is the Philippines behind in terms of building structures, bridges, and dams; its digital infrastructure is also very much behind.
This puts the tower-to-user ratio of
1 telco cell site is to 3,737 mobile users.
No wonder connection is so slow in the country! You are sharing one telco tower with 3,736 other people when the ideal number tower-to-user ratio is 1 is to 500.
To see how far behind the Philippines is in Telco Towers, just look at the comparison in the infographic below:
More Than Just an Issue of Budget and Planning
However, the lack of towers in the telecommunications industry of the Philippines goes beyond just the jarring [issue] of government budget and planning. The shortage of qualified manpower is a second hurdle that the DICT and mobile network operators have to power over.
Manpower shortage in the telecommunications industry raises recruitment, operational, and procurement concerns. It’s an endless cycle of circling around, ‘who are the most qualified batch of workers to take on this job‘, or ‘how do I maximize output per shift‘, and ‘where do we find the right contractors for this project?‘
And relative to the height of a telco tower, that’s how much effort goes into the telecommunications projects altogether. Not a lot of technicians, regardless of skill, are cleared to do work at elevated heights. It’s a niche job role. Thus, the demand for tower technicians in the telecommunications industry.
Let’s talk about this more.
