Dito Telecommunity Corp. will introduce its commercial services “in waves” starting March 8 initially in Mindanao and Visayas, as it seeks to provide its telco services in areas that are “previously underserved.”
Adel Tamano, the company’s chief administrative officer, said the group is ready to introduce its commercial services in the Philippines, after passing the first independent audit of its network.
“On March 8 we will be having our commercial launch. It is going to be a launch in waves—it’s a phased launch. We will start first in Mindanao. There’s a sentimental reason for that because before Dito became Dito, we were Mindanao Islamic Telephone Co., which was actually set up to serve the underserved areas, so we found it fitting to initially launch it in Mindanao and Visayas,” he said.
He noted that as the days and weeks progress, Dito will be selling its sim cards in “17 cities and municipalities in Visayas and Mindanao.” Metro Manila and Luzon will soon be able to avail of Dito’s services before June.
As of writing time, Dito has yet to provide the media with the specifics of the 17 cities and municipalities.
Tamano said Dito decided on a phased launch—essentially the selling of sim cards in all parts of the country—as it wants to ensure “quality customer experience” by providing the right channels of after sales services and logistics.
“In terms of commitment, nationally, we’re available, however, the physical elements, it’s a commercial decision to first do it in Mindanao and Cebu. We believe that this complies with the commitments in our franchise,” Tamano said.
Currently, Dito is building about 20 stores in Visayas and Mindanao. By March 8, there should be about “10 to 20 points of sale” in the two regions. So far, Dito has spent about P150 billion in capital expenditures to build its initial network. For 2022, Dito is spending another P50 billion to expand its reach and meet its commitments.
After passing the first independent audit, conducted by RG Manabat & Co., Dito is subject to its second audit on July 8.
So far, Dito is confident that it will pass the next round of network evaluation, Dito Chief Technology Officer Rodolfo D. Santiago said.
“We’re on track to meet our second year commitment and that’s by July 8 of this year. Right now, we’re about 45 percent in terms of population coverage. We’re building up our 5G network because we cannot achieve the 55 Mbps with a 4G LTE system only. We are banking on 5G coverage to push that up to a minimum of 55 Mbps,” he said.
Dito committed that on its second year of operations, its network should reach an additional 13.99 percent of the population—or more than half of the country’s population when combined with its first year commitments—and deliver an average minimum speed of 55 Mbps to its users.
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