Friday , 29 March 2024
The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. main building on the corner of Makati Avenue and Ayala Avenue, Makati City. (TMM file photo)

PLDT to petition court in row with NTC, SMC

By Luis Leoncio

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) will petition the courts to compel regulator National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to reassign part of the right of conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) to the prized 700-megahertz (MHz) frequency allocation that telecommunication companies need to upgrade data services. 

SMC acquired the rights to nearly the entire 700-MHz band via its Wi-Tribe and High Telecommunication units.

The 700 MHz band (698-806 MHz band) had been previously allocated for the use of analog broadcast television.

The advent of digital broadcasting technology that could efficiently use radio spectrum has made it possible to reallocate the frequency for the use of mobile-phone services.

PLDT maintained that “economic benefits” from using the 700-MHz frequency band for mobile broadband far exceeded those from broadcasting.

The 700-MHz frequency band is best at penetrating buildings and traveling long distances

SMC President Ramon S. Ang, who is in the midst of forming a mobile-communications joint venture with Australian telecommunications giant Telstra, has turned down appeals from telecommunications firms for SMC to share the spectrum.

Ang said the joint venture between SMC and Telstra plans to launch in the first quarter of 2016.

Lawyer Ray Espinosa, PLDT head of regulatory affairs, said the company would also petition President Aquino to intercede in the dispute, and that PLDT was preparing to question NTC, SMC and Telstra over the rejection of the PLDT’s petition to acquire part of the spectrum.

“The 700 MHz has been issued with the assumption that it will be used for broadcast purposes only so the companies that hold it cannot legally use it for mobile-communications purposes,” he said.

“We are prepared to take vigorous action judicially, if that’s necessary, for us to get our fair share of the frequency … and that could mean bringing the case before our judicial courts. That would be against the regulators and the holders of the frequency,” Espinosa added.

“We will also bring it to the attention of the Office of the President to emphasize how important this is … before the end of the year, if not the early part of January.”

Edgardo Cabarios, head of the NTC regulatory division, earlier said it was unlikely that NTC would act on the petition to reassign the 700-MHz spectrum because the SMC had been meeting its obligations to the government in terms of fees and other charges on the use of the frequency band.

Telstra plans to invest up to $1 billion for a 40-percent stake in the joint venture with SMC, and has committed to provide money, through bank loans, to fund the rollout of a mobile-phone network.

PLDT and Globe Telecom are increasingly under public pressure to ramp up the quality of their Internet services, which are considered among the slowest in Asia, if not the world.

Ang had said SMC has no plans of sharing the spectrum with the two telcos.

“Between the two of them (PLDT and Globe), they have almost 300 MHz of LTE frequencies. Why do they need more? They have all the frequencies, all the technology. All they have to do is fine-tune what they have,” Ang said.

“We’re building a mobile broadband-telecommunications network next year to end all the problems with local telecom services,” Ang said during Forbes Global CEO Conference in October. “The moment we switch on our telco, it will be a superior network. We’re building a network that will provide our countrymen a good network that will work.”

First Metro Securities said the SMC-Telstra venture could offer consumers better service and would accelerate the telecoms race that has seen both PLDT and Globe spending billions of pesos to upgrade their networks.

“If Telstra comes in and skips the 3G & 4G technology and goes straight to 5G, then that could accelerate capital spending for both telcos,” First Metro head of Equity

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