THE National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) in Central Luzon and Globe Telecom have partnered to deploy the "Cellular site on Wheels" (COW) in order to address the problem of “weak signal” for mobile calls and data at the Diosdado Macapagal Government Center (DMGC) in the City of San Fernando.
NTC-Central Luzon Director Azor Sitcon told SunStar Pampanga on October 29 that they came up with a solution to solve the signal problem being experienced by national government regional agencies and their clients at the said government center.
“For the longest time dyan sa DMGC, which is the center of all regional offices in Central Luzon, problema namin ang voice call, data and mobile phone coverage. This has been an issue for the longest time, ang problema they (Globe) cannot find a location, kasi you need more or less 300 square meters to build a regular tower cell site, so which is no longer available sa common area ng DMGC. So we came out with a partnership with Globe, yung COW or Cell site On Wheels,” Azor said.
He said the COW will only be needing 10x10 square meters of area to be operational and since this is a mobile cell site, it can be deployed with the lease amount of time, thus addressing the problem of mobile coverage at the DMGC.
“Ang kailangan lang nila (Globe) ay 10x10 square meters kasi mobile ito, initially tatayo ito sa NTC compound, but right now, pinapagawa namin ang aming building dahil dilapidated na ito, so we asked Neda Region 3 na doon muna ilagay ang mobile cell site at nag agree naman sila to host the COW. This project is NTC led together with Claro and Neda yung secretariat and management committee ng government center,” Azor said.
Jussan Consunji, head of the Regional Acquisition and Management of Globe Telecom, said the COW is actually a temporary solution to provide coverage in the government center area.
“NTC has requested us at Globe Telecom to improve the signal coverage so we are planning to deploy our Cell site on Wheels sa area, hopefully this November. We are just trying to seek clearance on the electrical requirements and technical requirements as well, and then hopefully we can already mobilize it,” Consuji said.
She said the COW tower is 12 meters high and is expected to provide the full coverage of the whole government center, adding that the COW is the property of Globe and all expenses will be shouldered by their company.
“We will be deploying this though our own expense. This will be deployed for five to six months and hopefully by then, our permanent solution will already be available. We are planning to build the cell site there or a full macro site at the DMGC by next year,” Consunji said. (Chris Navarro)