PhilTower Consortium Inc. (PhilTower) has announced the full operation of the 250 towers it acquired from Globe.
The towers are located in Visayas and Mindanao and are part of the 578 towers taken over from Globe in February.
CEO of PhilTower, Devid Gubiani, said, "This is yet another big milestone for us of full operational handover of towers from Globe. PhilTower believes in its organizational pillars such as people, process, technology readiness and a faster way of asset management to achieve takeover in a short span of time. We have ensured a smooth transition through detailed planning, performing drone audits, setting up regional offices and resources, and onboarding existing Globe O&M and security partners. We look forward to extending further operational savings to Globe from the establishment of the 24/7 operational capability and distributed field operations teams in the challenging territories of Visayas and Mindanao.”
PhilTower and Globe signed a sale and leaseback deal for the acquisition of 1,350 Globe sites in September 2022, with the first batch of 578 towers turned over in February 2023. Within just five months, the PhilTower Operations team, under the leadership of its COO, PT Pawar, was able to build two regional operational centers and ramp up resources to ensure a smooth transition. Currently, PhilTower operates towers on 17 major islands of Visayas and Mindanao, covering most of the provinces.
PT Pawar explained, “The faster and [smoother] transitioning is achieved through setting up PhilTower’s transitioning project management office of key experts, internal workstreams, outsourcing of field activities and management support for critical decision alignment. The focus on day one digitalization of site audits, proactive planning and execution helped us to complete handover requirements like deployment of electronic locks, RMS, establishing centralized Tower Operation Centre for 24/7 manning at BGC, field workforce management tools and KPI monitoring processes. We appreciate the valuable inputs and support of Globe teams during transitioning, handholding and, now, [the] start of standalone operation. PhilTower will ensure post-transitioning improvement of network availability.”
Globe Group President and CEO Ernest Cu congratulated PhilTower for the fast turnaround, saying, “We are happy to hear that the first batch of towers we turned over to PhilTower are now fully operational after just five months. This speaks of the smooth transition between the two companies. This level of efficiency is crucial in ensuring undisrupted services to our customers.”
