President Duterte has asked the Chinese government to become the third player in the country’s telecom industry in an attempt to break the duopoly supposedly established by two big companies, Malacañang revealed on Monday.

The revelation was made more than a month after the President revealed that foreign Internet service providers were trying to enter the local game but weren’t able to do so due to alleged inaction by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Duterte made the offer to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during their expanded bilateral meeting in Malacañang last Wednesdaydue to China’s technology to provide efficient telecom service.

“President Duterte offered to the People’s Republic of China (PROC) the privilege to operate the third telecom carrier in the country,”Roque said.

Roque’s announcement came after the Philippine government signed with an affiliate of Facebook a project called the “Luzon Bypass” of the Pacific Light Cable Network which will provide bandwidth of two terabits per second (tbps).

He said the two tbpsis equivalent to the current capacity of the duopoly operators today, referring to PLDT, Inc., and the Globe Telecom.

“With the number of subscribers that Chinese telecommunications companies have in China, there can be no doubt that they are amongst the biggest in the world,”Roque said.

“Consider also the proximity and the fact that we want to avail (ourselves) of as much economic advantage that we could arising from the renewed friendly ties with China,” he added.

Breaking the duopoly

According to Roque, the entry of a third player in the field of telecommunications will break the duopoly, which will effectively result in better service for the public.

“The telecom’s duopoly is about to end with the entry of the Facebook subsidiary as well as the offer by the President of the People’s Republic of China to operate the third telecoms carrier,” he said.

“So the good news is, consumers can look forward now to better telecommunications, not just in terms of cellular technology but also in terms of Internet speed as well as access,” he added.

Roque also said that the process of breaking the duopoly would have been done sooner if only former DICT Secretary Rodolfo Salalima had acted on it.

“This agreement with the subsidiary of Facebook should have been signed as early as December, 2016. It was not signed by the former secretary of the DICT. And this was one of the areas pinpointed by Cabinet investigators as an area of conflict of interest for the former secretary of DICT,”Roque said.

“It was further reported by the special investigating committee that the former DICT secretary likewise may have prevented the earlier breakup of the duopoly by delaying the use of satellites as viable option,” he added.

National broadband plan

Roque also said that it was also observed that the initial costs for a national broadband plan (NBP) appeared excessive at P200 billion because the recommendation did not consider the contribution that could be made by existing broadband providers.

These included the National Grid Corporation (NGCP), the National Transmission Corporation, Fiber Optic Alliance, and the Philippine National Railway Communication Project.

“Now, it would appear also that under the scheme being pushed by the former secretary of DICT, the NBP terrestrial backbone would still have left the duopoly with the right to connect the end users to the backbone,” he said.

“And this after government would have spent already P77 billion,” he added.

It was reported that Duterte asked Salalima to resign last September due to conflict of interest. Salalima was the former lead lawyer of telecommunications industry giant Globe Telecom.

Dutertehad earlier said that he wants to open up the market to foreign telecommunications player to provide cheaper communications service to the public, noting that he is aware that the Philippines is lagging behind in terms of Internet speed.

“This is why I was hurrying up a competition. The only way to improve your service is bigyankitangkompetensiya (if I give you competition). Or if there are only two of you, mag-uusap kayo niyan (you would come into terms),”Duterte said last September.

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by Argyll Cyrus Geducos

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