Plan to bring in new telco players backed

MANILA - Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr. has backed President Rodrigo Duterte’s plan to improve telecommunications services by bringing in new players and driving direct competition.

“The lack of effective competition in the sector has led to higher prices, poor quality or levels of service, and considerably less innovation – all at the expense of consumers,” Campos, a deputy minority leader, said.

“We simply cannot allow Filipinos to be for-

ever at the mercy of only two dominant service providers,” Campos said.

The President’s resolve to introduce new players emerged anew when Rodolfo Salalima suddenly resigned as Secretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) after less than 15 months in office.

In an interview with PTV4, the President said he had asked Salalima to vacate his post amid complaints that due to favoritism, he sat on proposals to break the country’s telecommunications duopoly.

Salamina was one-time chief legal counsel and senior advisor of Globe Telecom Inc., which, together with rival PLDT Inc., have ruled the telecommunications sector for years.

The DICT is overseeing the creation of a national broadband network that aims to provide an Internet connection speed of at least 10 Mbps to all households by 2020 at a significantly lower price than today’s average P1,299 per month.

Campos is counting on Salalima’s replacement to find the legal and regulatory frameworks that would open up the telecommunications sector.

“We should have multiple players persistently racing to beat each other in delivering superior Internet services at reduced prices,” Campos said.

He cited the case of America, which has at least five leading telecommunications players constantly improving offerings to lure each other’s subscribers.

“Many Americans actually switch mobile telephone and broadband service providers every now and then, because the options are getting diverse and better all the time,” Campos said.

For years, the Philippines’ Internet connection speed has been rated the slowest in Asia Pacific by Akamai Technologies Inc.

The problem has prompted Campos to push for the reclassification of Internet service as a basic telecommunications provision so that regulators may compel nonstop upgrades under pain of harsh administrative fines. At present, Internet service in the country is considered a “value-added service” beyond the regulatory powers of the National Telecommunications Commission, which is under the DICT.

Based on Akamai’s State of the Internet Report as of the first quarter of 2017, the Philippines’ 5.5 Mbps average connection speed pales when compared to Thailand’s 16.0 Mbps, Vietnam’s 9.5 Mbps, Malaysia’s 8.9

Mbps and Indonesia’s 7.2 Mbps.

Worldwide, South Korea has the fastest average connection speed at 28.6 Mbps, while Paraguay has the slowest at 1.4 Mbps.

Mbps is short for megabits per second – a measure of network transmission or data transfer speed. A megabit is equal to one million bits.