PLDT concerned about proposal to make it easier for ISPs to enter broadband market

Telecommunications giant PLDT Inc. has voiced concern about a proposal to make it easier for more internet service providers (ISPs) to enter the country's broadband market.

During the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on Tuesday, PLDT corporate secretary and chief legal counsel Marilyn Victorio-Aquino said such a measure “will open the data transmission industry to data transmission participants who will be allowed to own and operate a network without obtaining a franchise, or a certificate of public convenience, or a provisional authority unlike the telcos.”

“When a data transmission industry player owns and operates a network, it will be allowed to compete for the scarce frequencies which are available to players like us,” Victorio-Aquino said.

“When that happens, you ask yourselves, so what happens between the business of a data transmission player and the telcos when they can operate and own a network and they can compete [for] our frequency? There’s not much difference,” she added.

In the 18th Congress, the House of Representatives passed House Bill 8910, or the Open Access in Data Transmission Act, which seeks to make it easier for ISPs to enter and compete in the local broadband market, allow faster and less expensive installation of broadband facilities, and lower the prices of internet charges across the country.

Its counterpart bill in the Senate, however, failed to move past the committee level.

Proponents have the option to reintroduce it in the 19th Congress, which begins in late July.

Foreign business groups had already expressed support for the proposal.

“So, why will they be treated differently? Why will they be allowed to operate and conduct business without obtaining a franchise and a certificate of public convenience and necessity?  Both requirements are imposed on telcos, which somehow restrict our operations in such a way that these regulators subject us to. So, these are the questions that need to be asked in case this bill is reintroduced in the new congress,” Victorio-Aquino said.

Nonetheless, PLDT and Smart Communications president and CEO Alfredo Panlilio expressed optimism about the company’s growth momentum amid the shifting industry landscape.

“Our exceptional performance in 2021 sets the foundation for 2022 as we continue to leverage on our strengths as the Philippines’ largest and most diversified fully integrated telecommunications company,” Panlilio said.

As of the first quarter of 2022, PLDT reported a net income of P9.1 billion, up 56% year-on-year as consolidated service revenues hit an all-time high of P46.4 billion, up 3% from a year earlier. —VBL, GMA News