THE Mislatel consortium plans to rebrand its service as “Dito Telecommunity Corp.” after receiving its operating license, telecommunications regulators said.
President Rodrigo R. Duterte was due to formally award on Monday afternoon the telecommunications third player’s permit to operate. The ceremony, pushed back to early Monday evening, had not taken place at deadline time but at a preceding event to swear in various officials Mr. Duterte said in his speech at Malacañang Palace that the award was due to take place immediately after.
Mr. Duterte was scheduled to formally award the certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN), or permit to operate as a telco, and radio frequencies to Mislatel, which will offer its service as “Dito Telecommunity Corp.,” government officials said.
The awarding of the CPCN was to be led by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and National telecommunications Commission (NTC).
“After complying with the requirement of P10 billion in additional paid-in capital and the submission of a performance bond, Dito Telecommunity Corp. has now been granted its CPCN and frequencies for them to extensively test their network before commercial operations,” National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Commissioner Gamaliel A. Cordoba said in a statement.
Adel A. Tamano, who serves as spokesperson of the group formed by China Telecommunications Corp., Udenna Corp., and Chelsea Logistics and Infrastructure Holdings Corp., said recently that Mislatel’s rollout will start immediately after obtaining the permit.
Dennis A. Uy, founder, chairman and CEO of the Udenna Corp., was due to accept the CPCN on behalf of the Mislatel consortium.
In a statement, Mr. Uy, who also serves as chairman of Dito Telecommunity, said: “We thank the government sector for working closely with us and the Filipinos for their enthusiastic support. The CPCN means a lot to us at Udenna. This is more than a compliance certification. It is a clear signal that we are fully committed to providing world-class telecommunications in the country. This issuance will fast-track our project rollouts as we plan to start commercial operations by 2020. This is just the beginning of establishing a telecommunity that will celebrate every Filipino’s life, existence, and presence.”
The consortium received radio frequency bands of 700 megahertz (MHz), 2100 MHz, 2000 MHz, 2.5 gigahertz (GHz), 3.3 GHz, and 3.5 GHz.
In a statement, the DICT noted that the entry of a third player “is one of the President Duterte’s campaign promises in order to promote genuine competition in the industry and to improve the country’s telecommunication services.”
In its first year of operation, Mislatel committed to deliver a minimum broadband speed of 27 Megabits per second (Mbps). The consortium promised to deliver 55 Mbps in the succeeding years.
The consortium committed to cover 37.03% of the country’s total population in its first year of operations and to have 84.01% coverage in five years.
Mislatel’s commercial launch is scheduled in the second quarter of 2020. — Arjay L. Balinbin
