Who’s out? The word is finally out

Several old guards at the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) were forced to retire after being offered very attractive packages. Among them are PLDT top officials Antonio Samson and Ignatius Yenko.

According to sources, Samson is retiring from PLDT but will retain his position as president of Mediaquest, a PLDT subsidiary.

Samson’s exit from PLDT is due to two main reasons: Streamlining, as well as the inability of the company to go through with its convergence strategy following its decision to withdraw its offer to purchase controlling interest in GMA 7.

In the case of Yenko, the reasons are not known, except that sources say that he and PLDT president Manny Pangilinan are parting in bad terms. Yenko handled the acquisitions group of PLDT and probably another reason for his exit is the fact that PLDT is not acquiring anything, at least in the short-term, so the position of Yenko is useless.

Sourgraping

After realizing that it was not able to have its way even after having solicited the controversial US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) international bureau order, AT&T reportedly now wants to increase the stakes.

AT&T now wants FCC to require call centers to pay according to traditional settlement rate procedures i.e. 12 cents per minute, thus destroying the comparative advantage of the Philippines in the international call center business.

The US carrier also wants to ask for the cancellation of the license of PLDT’s US subsidiary PLDT Global.

AT&T has gotten the raw end of the deal, and the FCC bureau order issued by Donald Abelson has created more problems than solutions for it.

For one, Philippine carriers, resourceful as they are, are now sending call traffic to the United States at lower rates than when they were doing it through AT&T.

Philippine calls are now passing through Hong Kong and "refiled" into the US for as low as 1.9 cents per minute. On the other hand, AT&T has to pay an average of 10.4 cents through aggregators who use ISR or use the networks of non-affected IGF (international gateway facility) operators such as Capwire and Philcom. Theoretically, IGF-licensed Bell Telecom can expand its business since it is unmentioned by the FCC order.