PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, July 8, presented to Davao businessman Dennis Uy the permit allowing Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company, Inc. (Mislatel) Consortium to operate the third major telecommunications company in the country.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issued the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) to Mislatel in a ceremony held at Malacañan Palace.

In a statement, NTC Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba said Mislatel was issued the license to operate the frequency bands 700 megahertz (MHz), 2100 MHz, 2000 MHz, 2.5 gigahertz (GHz), 3.3 GHz and 3.5 GHz.

Mislatel Consortium is a partnership between Uy's Udenna Corporation and its subsidiary Chelsea Logistics and Infrastructure Holdings Corporation, and China Telecommunications Corporation.

In a statement, Mislatel said it will be renamed to Dito Telecommunity Corporation.

The CPCN was granted after Mislatel complied with the requirement to put up additional paid-in capital of P10 billion and performance security bond amounting to P25.7 billion.

The company will offer only 4G technology in line with its commitment to increase internet speed in the country to 55 Mbps. There will be no legacy 2G or 3G services.

The company also said it will conduct a pilot user program towards the end of 2019 to test its network prior to commercial operations in 2020.

Mislatel committed to achieve 37.03 percent national coverage with an average speed of 27 Mbps on its first year of operations.

By its fifth year of operations, it is expected to cover 84.01 percent of the population with an average speed of 55 Mbps.