AT&T, Telenor eyeing third telco bid – DICT
US-based AT&T and Norwegian firm Telenor have expressed interest in challenging the PLDT-Globe duopoly, the country’s acting Telecommunications chief said on Thursday.
“We are not yet sure if they will submit a bid [but]… they’re interested, so they’re here,” Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Officer-in-Charge Eliseo Rio told reporters following a public hearing on draft rules for the third telco search.
AT&T and Telenor’s interest could not be separately confirmed but the two join Korea Telecom, LG, China Telecom and KDDI Corp. in the list of foreign telcos that Rio has said want to partner with local companies such as Davao-based Tier1, Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (PT&T), NOW Telecom, Transpacific Broadband Group International Inc., Converge ICT Solutions and Easycall Communications Philippines.
The so-called “new major player” or NMP will be chosen under a highest committed level of service (HCLoS) system, with points to be awarded based on population coverage, broadband speed and spending pledges over five years.
Operating and capital expenditures as well as national population coverage will account for 40 percent each of the total score while the minimum average broadband speed has been given a 20 percent weight.
Latest tweaks to the proposed terms of reference (TOR) revised the population coverage criteria to a minimum of 10 percent per year from the previous 30 percent, while the technical capability requirement was raised to 10 years of “provisioning, delivery and operations of telecommunications services … on a national scale” from five years previously.
Following Thursday’s public hearing, National Telecommunications Commissioner (NTC) Gamaliel Cordoba said stakeholders had been given 10 days to submit their position papers on the latest draft rules.
The NTC and the DICT will then have seven days to publish the final TOR, which will take effect after 15 days. The bidding process will start in one or two months and Rio said he remained confident that the NMP will be named before the end of the year.
“There might be 2 to 3 [bidders]that are ready by October. We’ll play it by ear,” Rio said.
The DICT chief also said that the new player would “not need much frequency” during its first year following concerns that the government was not offering enough bands.
“[A]ng point namin is itong frequencies na available are already interesting enough kasi pagpasok na pagpasok nitong third telco, halos wala silang subscribers (Our point is that the frequencies available are already interesting enough as the third telco, when they come in, will have practically no subscribers),” he told reporters following the public hearing.
Rio gave assurances that the government would audit idle frequencies for equitable distribution. He said the DICT would come up with a way to determine if frequencies currently allocated to telcos were being used efficiently.
“[B]y the time [the third telco]will really need the frequencies at kulang na sila, that time umiiral na yung guidelines and policies namin and maybe may batas na tayo (By the time they will really need the frequencies and they are lacking that, our guidelines and policies will be in effect and maybe we will have a law),” he said.
The post AT&T, Telenor eyeing third telco bid – DICT appeared first on The Manila Times Online.