Third telco performance to gauge entry of new players

MANILA, Philippines — The entry of a fourth telco player would depend on the performance of the third telco player, according to Information and Communications Technology Secretary Gregorio Honasan.

Honasan said on the sidelines of the BusinessWorld Industry Summit 4.0 forum yesterday that the entry of a possible fourth or even fifth telco player would depend on the performance of the third telco player whose commercial operation has yet to start.

“We’ll find out what the performance of the third telco will be, if it achieves the objectives of lowering costs, and improving services. If their performance is good, then we’ll consider, but I cannot say when the fourth or fifth (player) will happen,” he said.

“The performance of the third telco would be felt next year or even by 2021, whether its effective or not. So far, we have seen the reactions from the other players. They have increased their capital and the net effect is improved services and cheaper costs. That is what we are hoping for to be its effect, which is going to serve the public interest, which is our interest also,” Honasan said.

If he is to choose, however, Honasan said “the more players the better,” but potential new entrants should undergo the required selection process.

The DICT chief said having a fourth telco player would require getting back unutilized frequencies that are already allocated so that these frequencies can, in turn, be given to new incoming players.

Dito, as the third telco player, was awarded radio frequency bands of 700 megahertz (MHz), 2100 MHz, 2000 MHz, 2.5 gigahertz (GHz), 3.3 GHz and 3.5 GHz.

But at the moment, Honasan said the government’s priority is Dito, a consortium composed of China Telecom and Dennis Uy’s Udenna Corp. and Chelsea Logistics and Infrastructure Holdings Corp.

“The focus right now is the third telco because this is just the one that recently underwent the process. We will take it one step at a time. We don’t want to have too much on our plate,” he said.

In line with improving the country’s telecommunications landscape, the DICT is also crafting rules and guidelines of a common tower policy which is expected to ramp up development of cell towers that will greatly improve mobile telecommunication services, internet reliability and efficiency.

Honasan said the DICT hopes to issue within the month a new draft version of the common tower policy.