THE telecoms duopoly is about to end, Malacaňang said Monday after President Rodrigo Duterte offered China the opportunity to enter as a possible ‘third player’ in the Philippine telecommunications industry dominated by PLDT and Globe Telecom.
“During the bilateral talks between President Duterte and the Chinese premier, President Duterte offered to the People’s Republic of China the privilege to operate the third telecoms carrier in the country,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said.
Saying the process of breaking the duopoly “should have been sooner,” Roque revealed that the former head of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Rodolfo Salalima, did not act on certain proposals”•including those for a Luzon Bypass Infrastructure recently signed between the Philippine government and a subsidiary of Facebook.
“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 the 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 a viable option.”
The National Broadband Plan, which sought to address the longstanding issue of Internet connection quality in the Philippines, however, would still allow PLDT ang Globe to benefit at the end of the day under Salalima’s plan, Roque said.
“It was also observed that the initial costs for a national broadband plan appeared excessive at P200 billion because the recommendation did not consider the contribution that could be made by existing broadband providers such as the National Grid Corporation, the National Transmission Corporation, Fiber Optic Alliance and the Philippine National Railway Communication Project,” Roque said.
“Now, it would appear also that under the scheme being pushed by the former secretary of the DICT, the NBP terrestrial backbone would still have left the duopoly with the right to connect the end users to the backbone.”
Roque’s announcement came after President Duterte ordered the creation of an inter-agency body that would review the National Broadband Plan following Salalima’s resignation. “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,” Roque said.
