PLDT, Globe continue to spar over merger

Manila — Listed Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has once again accused its rival Globe Telecom Inc. of trying to deceive the public on several issues that aim to nullify the former’s takeover of Digitel Telecommunications Philippines Inc.

At the resumption of the National Telecommunications Commission’s (NTC) hearings on the Digitel takeover, PLDT said Globe’s claims on interconnection and frequency allocation were misleading and did not show the real facts of the issues.

Globe is currently the leading opposing party against the takeover of Digitel, which will result in PLDT having a market share of 70 percent.

On Friday, Globe Telecom engineer Emmanuel Estrada in an affidavit argued that PLDT would end up with more frequency that it would need to carry out its operations and that the “excess” frequencies must be reviewed and rationalized to protect consumers and ensure a level playing field among the competitors.

Globe has said the PLDT group should be stripped of some of its frequencies to give smaller companies the chance to gain market share. Globe said unless this was done, the PLDT group would have a virtual monopoly in the local telecom sector.

“But PLDT’s share of frequency is commensurate to its number of subscribers,” PLDT regulatory affairs head Ray C. Espinosa said.

He pointed out that Smart had a total of 112.5 megahertz (MHz), Globe has 90 MHz, and Sun 42.5 MHz. “This is not ‘disproportionate’, given the respective subscriber bases of the three operators,” Espinosa said.

As of the end of 2010, Smart had 45.6 million subscribers, Globe had 26.5 million, and Digitel’s mobile brand Sun had 14 million.

According to Espinosa, Smart is currently the most efficient telecom firm in the use of radio frequencies. PLDT has about 406,000 users per MHz while Globe has 249,000 users per MHz. Sun, for its part, has 329,000 users for each MHz.

“The frequencies assigned to PLDT/Smart are being fully utilized in order to serve its large customer base,” he said.

Espinosa noted that under law, state-owned radio frequencies used in delivering mobile phone services should be awarded to service providers “who will use it efficiently and effectively to meet public demand for telecommunications service.” /INQUIRER