IN a bid to ease the suffering of disgruntled Filipino consumers, the information and communications department will review the usage of radio frequency of existing local telecommunications companies, warning carriers of the possible repossession of slices of spectrums if found unused.
Information Secretary Rodolfo A. Salalima said the audit will allow the government to seize unused frequencies and auction them off to budding companies to heighten competition.
“We may recover whatever frequency they are not using. The review will take into account the contracts signed between them and the government as to the expiration of frequencies,” Salalima told the BusinessMirror.
According to National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Deputy Commissioner Edgardo V. Cabarios, there are two ways on how a telco can lose its frequency allocation. One is if it is found to have not been using the frequency; and second is when the carrier fails to pay the frequency-usage fee.
Reportedly, NTC Commissioner Gamaliel A. Cordoba said his agency plans to auction off frequencies for a third player to come in and challenge the two existing carriers— PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc.
Filipinos have been clamoring for stronger competition in the telco industry, with the hope that new entrants will bring in better service.
The frequencies to be auctioned off are slices of those that the two companies surrendered to the government after their P69.1-billion acquisition of San Miguel Corp.’s telco assets.
Documents showed that the frequencies returned are the following: 20 megahertz (MHz) of the 700-Mhz band, 15 MHz of the 2,500 to 2,700-MHz band, 40 MHz of the 3,400 to 3,500-MHz band and 10 MHz of the 800-MHz band.
But for Internet Society of the Philippines Chairman Winthrop Yu, these frequencies are insufficient for a third player to effectively compete with the two titans.
“The correct procedure would have been for NTC to first recover spectrum, then auction to a third player. Instead, it seems it’s letting PLDT and Globe keep what they took, and is only auctioning off bits and pieces,” he told the BusinessMirror.
The acquisition of the frequency held by the budding third player paved way for the two carriers to gain access to a swathe of frequencies previously held by San Miguel. Before the buyout, PLDT held the 290 MHz and Globe, 210 MHz.
After the transaction, PLDT ended up with 420 MHz of frequency under its belt and Globe, 340 MHz.
The remainder of the 345 MHz, or 85 MHz, is what the government will auction off, according to Cordoba.
“Personally, I don’t think it’s sufficient for a third player. But that is the reason there is a need for a spectrum audit. Such a spectrum audit is needed in order to clearly make public all the spectrum assigned to all mobile operators,” Yu said.