Underground cabling for telecommunications mulled

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu City Government is considering a pilot project for underground telecommunications cabling in the Heritage District Street of the downtown area, as part of the ongoing effort to clear dangling wires across the city.

Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia announced on Monday that the responsibility for clearing dangling wires has been reassigned to Councilor Jaypee Labella, chairman of the Committee on Information and Communications Technology. This task was previously handled by Councilor Jerry Guardo, who heads the Committee on Infrastructure.

Garcia explained that the reassignment would allow Guardo to concentrate on road asphalting and concreting projects, which are currently in full swing. However, he noted that both committees would still collaborate on clearing the dangling wires.

With this new setup, Garcia anticipated a “drastic” improvement in addressing the issue.

Garcia revealed that discussions are underway with a private company to initiate underground cabling for telecommunications wires. He suggested that the Heritage District could be the pilot area, stating that dangling wires are such an eyesore.

“So maybe we can start with an area that we can sample or pilot first—our Heritage area, because it is such an eyesore,” Garcia said.

Garcia also mentioned that the underground cabling initiative would render the one-pole policy “outdated.”

Previously, Guardo had pushed for a one-pole policy and standardization of electrical poles, proposing minimum height requirements ranging from 16 to 80 feet for horizontal crossarms.

However, Garcia said the ultimate goal is to eliminate the use of poles entirely. He outlined plans to pursue the underground cabling project through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), where a private company would construct an underground trench for all telecoms to use.

“So all telecoms will now have to use that particular trench. I think that is where they will make their money, recovering expenses for building the trench,” Garcia explained, adding that Cebu City would receive a portion of the revenue.

The initial focus will be on clearing telecommunications wires, which are considered the most tangled and unsightly along city streets.

Meanwhile, Councilor Labella disclosed that six teams had already begun clearing dangling wires along M.J. Cuenco Avenue last week.

“I understand that Councilor Guardo was the one in charge of this before, but the issue was that Councilor Guardo was very busy with asphalting. That's why Mayor tasked me with this, and I’m very thankful to Councilor Guardo for handing everything over to me,” Labella said.

Labella noted that most of their clearing operations are based on requests from barangays, prioritizing areas with the worst conditions. He emphasized that there would be no favoritism in choosing which areas to address first.

“We will really base it on the barangay captains because they, or the councilors, know their barangays best. They can identify where the spaghetti wires are worst and where there are dangerous areas... We are determining this with their help,” he explained.  — (FREEMAN)