The country’s competition body is backing President Duterte’s offer to China to break the duopoly in the telecommunications (telco) industry and liberate Filipinos from the burden of paying relatively high fees for slow Internet service.
Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan said the President did the correct thing in giving China the privilege to enter the Philippine telco industry.
“It’s a welcome development that the President is actually very much supportive and is pushing for improvement in the Internet [service],” Balisacan said at the BusinessMirror Coffee Club Forum on Wednesday.
“I think everybody knows that there has got to be an improvement in our access to, and services in, telecom and Internet. And the clamor for improving services, particularly in the quality, price and cost of Internet, has been around,” Balisacan added.
According to Presidential Spokesman Harry L. Roque Jr., Duterte made the offer to China during his bilateral meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang last Wednesday.
“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,” Roque said in a news briefing on Monday. Balisacan said the President is navigating the right path in his objective of ending the duopoly in the telecom industry, which is heavily controlled by Globe Telecom Inc. and PLDT Inc. He added that the PCC is not against the two telecommunications giants, but said they have abused their dominance so much, to the point of exploiting their subscribers.
With this, the competition chief said the PCC views the entry of a third player as an opportunity to improve the quality and lower the cost of Internet service in the country. In Akamai’s “State of the Internet Report” for the first quarter of 2017, the Philippines had the lowest average connection speed at 5.5 megabits per second among Asia-Pacific countries.
On the other hand, the report said the country may see improvements to its infrastructure in the coming years, with the deployment of a national broadband plan estimated to cost the government as much as P200 billion.
Balisacan said he has yet to see the details of Duterte’s offer to China, but he leaves it to the wisdom of telecommunication officials to assess the technical capacity of companies interested to enter the Philippine telco industry.
He said the number of capable telco players in China has increased considerably, so concerned agencies have wider choices in implementing the policy pronouncement of the President. For the PCC, Balisacan noted that the best gauge to use in assessing the Chinese offer is its effect on cost and quality of Internet service.
For its part, Malacañang said the public can expect better Internet service soon with the President’s commitment to introduce a third telecom carrier. “So, the good news is, consumers can look forward now to better telecommuni-cations, not just in terms of cellular technology, but also in terms of Internet speed, as well as access,” Roque said.
“This is the latest instance of the President proving that he has the political will to do what is necessary to benefit the Filipino people. I repeat, the announcement is that duopoly—that telecoms 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,” Roque added.
The Palace official said the Chief Executive has instructed the Office of the executive secretary to manage all applications of Chinese telecom companies bidding to operate in the country.
2 comments
The services of the PLDT and Globe really sucks. They offer plans that do not benefit the users in the long run. They are only after the monthly payment even the services has not been availed due to the incapacity of their facilities. Cell phone loads are volatile even if not used. and many more…
Globe customer service is a joke. They’ve can’t resolve issues. You’ll have to follow up constantly to keep trouble Incidents are open or they close it without resolution. And even with constant follow up, they use scripted lies about incident being escalated ad-infinitum knowing full well nothing is being done. They’re simply waiting for their customer to give up calling, then close the incident without resolution. These can go for a year or so of non-resolution.