NGCP WILLING TO INK DEAL FOR BROADBAND PLAN

THE National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) is ready to sign a bilateral agreement with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to support the Duterte administration’s National Broadband Plan (NBP), the company said on Thursday.

In a statement, NGCP said it would let the government use its network of dark

fiber cables at no cost to show that,"con- - trary to some allegations,” it “has always been willing and eager to participate in the government’s efforts to develop a national broadband network.”

These cables, inherent to the operator’s transmission grid communication system, run along its power transmission backbone that stretches across the country.

NGCP said any “arrangement with a private entity will…be subject to commercial negotiations.”

It explained that under Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (Epira), a portion of revenues from the use of NGCP’s transmission assets for non-transmission purposes “must go into lowering transmission rates.”

“But if it is for government’s direct use and operation, we will give it for free,” the grid operator said.

“Either way, whether we partner with government or a private entity, there will be great benefit for the public. We give government priority in development,” it added.

This came after NGCP and DICT began talks last May on using the network and how it could support the NBP.

“We’ve already invited DICT representatives to visit several of our facilities in Cavite and Quezon City, to give them an idea of how our system can help,” NGCP said.

The company had hoped that the agreement would be signed in time for last year’s State of the Nation Address, but it said state-owned National Transmission Corp.’s (TransCo) insistence of being part of negotiations for the deal stalled it.

“There is no authority for [TransCo’s] involvement. When the government privatized the transmission network, all rights over the assets, except title, were turned over to the NGCP as concessionaire,” the company explained.

“Their attempts to be part of all this just muddle issues from a legal, technical, and practical point of view,” NGCP said.

“[W]hen you’re dealing with 20,000 circuit kilometers of cables and over 200 substations scattered across the three main islands, we can’t afford to be mired in dealing with unnecessary parties,” it added.

In response, TransCo criticized NGCP’s statement as “mere propaganda,” insisting that it “is part of the group holding meetings with DICT and NGCP,” with it “being the agency of the government protecting these assets.”

“This open letter of NGCP is nothing but a ruse to hoodwink the government,” TransCo said in a statement on Thursday.

“NGCP prepared a document to exclude TransCo because it wanted to benefit exclusively form the business of data transmission, too,” it added.

“This intention is exposed by the advertisements they released in various media outlets inviting telecommunications companies to partner with them,” TransCo said.

“They wanted a monopoly of electricity and internet transmission without any returns to the government,” it said.

“At the outset, NGCP wanted to control the negotiations, holding DICT and government hostage to the latter’s eagerness to have the National Broadband Plan implemented immediately,” TransCo said.