The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) rejected appeals from the other two shortlisted bidders and same the licence will go to the Mislatel consortium, in which China Telecom is a key partner.
The decision follows an announcement on Saturday by Eliseo Rio, head of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). Mislatel will invest the equivalent of $5.3 billion, he said.
“The government for its part will invest in telecommunication infrastructure that will be available to all players, big or small. These include a nationwide fibre optic cable backbone, cable landing stations, common towers and last mile facilities specially in underserved and unserved areas,” Rio posted on Facebook.
And the government is considering action that will allow “a fourth or even a fifth” operator to enter the market, competing against Globe and PLDT’s Smart mobile unit as well as today’s newcomer, he added.
“Mislatel made a commitment to greatly improve our telecommunication industry that can bring us at par with Singapore,” said Rio, noting that it is “putting a hefty performance bond” to back its promise. “Globe and PLDT/Smart never made any commitment in the more than 20 years of their operation,” he said. “They never posted any performance security. For the first time in our history, we required a new telco player to come up with time-bound commitments and putting their money where their mouths are.”
There has been controversy about the award to Mislatel, an abbreviation for Mindanao Islamic Telephone, a consortium that includes Udenna, a holding company owned by businessman Dennis Uy, an associate of Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, and Udenna’s shipping business, Chelsea Logistics, as well as China Telecom.
The decision has been announced as China’s president, Xi Jinping, sets off for a visit to the Philippines. It was during a visit to the Philippines just a year ago by China’s prime minister, Li Keqiang, that Duterte called for a third mobile operator, and said it should go to a Chinese operator.
In his Facebook announcement Rio offered hope to the unsuccessful bidders, saying Mislatel might be able to use “the tens of thousand kilometres of fibre optic cables of PT&T and Converge ICT, the satellite network of … Sear, the fibre on air of NOW, etc.”
He added: “Globe and Smart are not patronising these small telco players because both have built their own infrastructures. While the giant incumbent telcos treat these small players as customers, the new major telco player can treat them as partners, even sharing its facilities and frequencies with them.”
He added: “The third telco will spur business for small telcos and last mile links like [cable TV] operators.”
