DICT to await SC ruling on frequencies
Some claimants have agreed to withdraw petitions for disputed 3G frequencies but the issue remains far from settled, the country’s acting Information and Communications Technology chief said on Monday.
Industry players Globe Telecom, ABS-CBN Convergence and NOW Corp. have to jointly agree to pursue an out-of-court settlement, Department of Information and Communications Technolocy (DICT) officer-in-charge Eliseo Rio saud.
“It has to be concurrence of petitioners,” he told The Manila Times in a phone interview.
While the Ayala-led telco and ABS-CBN have decided to drop their claims, aspiring third telco player NOW remains intent on securing frequencies formerly assigned Bayan Telecommunications Inc. (Bayantel), Rio said.
“Actually, this just came in from the NTC (National Telecommunications Commission), but NOW doesn’t want to withdraw,” he said, which means that the government will have to wait for a Supreme Court ruling on the matter.
Asked to confirm Rio’s statement, NOW business development head Kristian Pura only said: “We reached out to Rio on this item and clarified.”
ABS-CBN and Globe Telecom did not respond to requests for comment.
Rio said the government would “not necessarily” award the Bayantel frequencies to the new telco player, but he assured that they would come up with an equitable way of distributing the spectrum to make it fair for all existing telcos.
“Globe has only 10 megahertz, the new telco will be awarded 15 megahertz, PLDT and Smart have 25 megahertz so you’ll notice Globe [will be left behind],” he noted.
“This is without the Bayantel. When we get the Bayantel frequencies we have to distribute it … not only to the three telcos but other who would be interested,” Rio added.
The government official also claimed that Ayala-led Globe was more efficient in using its allocated frequencies compared to PLDT’s Smart.
He said that even with only 10 MHz of 3G spectrum, Globe had 40 million subscribers, “more than twice” that of Smart.
Proposed terms of reference for the third telco search state that the Bayantel frequencies could be assigned to the so-called new major player if an injunction ordered by the Court of Appeals is lifted.
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