DOTC prepares terms for lease of 672 government PCOs

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) is preparing the terms of reference for a plan that will lease out 672 government public calling offices (PCOs) to the private sector as part of a presidential directive to increase Internet penetration in the country.

DOTC Undersecretary Agustin Bengzon said government’s communication program will focus on the creation of multi-purpose telecenters that will have not only telephone lines but also Internet facilities.

As planned, whoever will win in the bidding for the lease of the PCOs must repair and maintain them and during the duration of the lease, upgrade them into telecenters.

The DOTC has yet to decide whether to bid out the entire lot of 672 PCOs currently being maintained by the Telecommunications Office (TELOF), an agency attached to the department, or divide the lot into smaller groups depending on the region or province in which they are located.

"Ideally, we want to bid all the PCOs as one lot but it might not be attractive so we might consider several lots by region or provinces," Bengzon said.

He expects the TOR, that will contain the mechanics for the bidding, to be finalized not later than April this year.

DOTC Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez said the program will be entirely private sector-funded, although the department and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) have recommended certain regulatory incentives such as reduced NTC supervisory fees to entice participants.

The setting up of multi-purpose telecenters via the rehabilitation of existing government PCOs is just part of an overall program of the DOTC to increase Internet penetration, a directive enunciated by President Arroyo during her first state-of-the-nation address last year.

The DOTC and NTC are also considering granting incentives to companies or groups that will put up telecenters or business centers complete with fax and Internet capabilities on their own.

The refocused Alternative Communications Program (ACP) will also replace the mothballed Telepono sa Baranggay program which was junked due to the huge expense that it will entail on the part of government as well as the Service Area Scheme (SAS) which earlier divided the country into several areas and assigning each area to holders of cellular mobile telephone service (CMTS) and international gateway facilities (IGF) – requiring them to install around 400,000 telephone lines for CMTS license holders and 300,000 lines for IGF.

SAS resulted in an underutilization of capacity, with participants such as Globe Telecom, Bayan Telecommunications, Digital Telecommunications (Digitel), Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), to name a few suffering from too many telephone lines without subscribers. There is no estimate yet as to how much a participant to the multi-purpose telecenter project will have to shell out to rehabilitate the TELOF PCOs. According to Bengzon, each participants will have to do its own costing.

One industry official said these PCOs have been badly maintained and that to upgrade them into telecenters would cost a lot of money.