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Tuesday, January 17, 2006
PLDT opts to ‘embrace’ VoIP amid competition
By Aurelia l. Castro
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
If you can’t fight it, embrace it.
That’s how dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Smart Communications Inc. president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno looks at the competition with the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology.
“VoIP is just like any other disruptive technology because it’s revolutionary. It dislocates the existing technologies where a lot of investments have been put into in the past and may have not been fully recovered yet,” he said in a press interview last week.
VoIP technology routes phone calls through the Internet, instead of through traditional public switched telephone networks. Its low cost for cheap outbound calls made it a popular alternative to traditional voice calls offered by telecommunications providers.
Doesn’t hurt
However, it doesn’t have to hurt the telecom industry, he said.
“What we are doing is we’re embracing VoIP. With the deployment of our Next Generation Network (NGN), we will really be at the cutting edge and spearheading broadband propagation. We will have the widest and extensive capability in the country for broadband services and, therefore, for VoIP, also because you need broadband access to offer VoIP,” he said.
NGN gives PLDT the ability to enhance its voice and data services by offering voice and digital subscriber line (high-speed Internet connection) in one package, he explained.
Cost-efficient
He also said domestic long distance calls or voice calls will become less and less expensive as PLDT puts in more cost-efficient technologies.
PLDT will invest P30 billion for its thrust of advancing its broadband services, including NGN, for the next two to three years, he said.
In a separate interview yesterday, National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) 7 Regional Director Danilo Sy said VoIP is a technology that breaks the cost barrier of communication among overseas Filipino workers and their dependents in the country.
Sy admitted that due to the “high” P10-million paid-up capital requirement for VoIP service providers, there are no applications yet filed at NTC 7 from VoIP providers and resellers.
The NTC released last year a set of guidelines for the registration of VoIP service providers that requires a P10-million paid-up capital for companies that plan to provide VoIP.
In the guidelines, each VoIP service provider is required to post a P5-million performance bond to guarantee its service to the public while VoIP resellers (like Internet cafes and call stations with VoIP services) need to post a P1-million performance bond.
He called on VoIP providers and resellers to visit and register at the NTC 7 office. He added that NTC 7 is open for discussion and willing to assist them.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 17, 2006 issue)
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