By Emmie V. Abadilla
The LCS Group and TierOne Communications, aspirants to the country's “third telco” slot, plan to revolutionize local internet services by deploying cargo containers that double as Wi-Fi hot spots, called Telco-in-a-Box.
The Telco-in-a-Box can also serve as a shop for SIM and top-up cards.
The low cost and ease of building these telco infrastructure make it the perfect platform to bring Internet connection to every barangay in the Philippines, particularly the far-flung ones, according to the proponents.
“We are committed to giving Filipinos the connectivity they need wherever they are in the country,” maintained LCS Group of Companies president and chairman Luis “Chavit” Singson.
“Our being an archipelago will no longer be an obstacle in providing fast, affordable, reliable Internet not only to businesses, but to anyone who needs or wants it.”
LCS Group and TierOne plan to offer the Telco-in-a-Box infrastructure to expedite the spread of Internet coverage and democratize the telecommunication industry by giving entrepreneurs opportunities to take part in it.
Telco-in-a-Box sites will work in tandem with High Throughput Satellites (HTS), which can deliver spot beams with 1.3gbps of data per transponder that can then provide up to 100mbps per customer.
LCS Group and TierOne recently acquired a stake in a broadband HTS operator.
“We went with this approach because this is the best way of tackling the problem of how to build cell sites as fast and as cheaply as possible,” Singson explained.
Apart from being more affordable than what the dominant Internet service providers are offering, he claimed that the technology meets the highest level of service as mandated by the Department of Information and Communication Technology and the National Telecommunication Commission.
The LCS Group and TierOne Consortium maintains they are a telecommunications ecosystem, with members covering various facets of the business: engineering, value-added services, and device manufacturing, as well as network services, small-cell antenna manufacture and tower provision.