TELECOMMUNICATIONS giants Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and Globe Telecom Incorporated on Wednesday, November 7, welcomed the China Telecom-led Mislatel Consortium as the New Major Player (NMP) in the telecommunications industry.
Mislatel, a partnership between China Telecommunications Corporation and Davao businessman Dennis Uy's Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corporation, was declared Wednesday as the provisional NMP after the detailed evaluation of its selection documents.
"We welcome the entry of a new player in the Philippine telecommunications industry. Competition is the norm in a liberalized environment and will benefit our customers, the industry, and the country," PLDT said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
Globe, for its part, said the selection of Mislatel would "help foster a healthy competitive environment and ultimately benefit consumers."
The Ayala-led telecommunications company said the NMP has the potential of opening up new sources of revenue streams for telcos while providing consumers with more innovative products and services.
“We are glad for the smooth selection process undertaken by DICT and NTC. As previously and continuously stated, we hope the government will equally support the existing telcos like Globe, which continue to provide services to millions of Filipinos, and in the case of Globe, over 67 mil-lion total subscribers,” said Globe general vounsel Froilan Castelo.
Globe said it has started divesting its tower assets and creating a separate tower holding company to help foster competition.
"This initiative will allow the third player to rapidly roll out its network and launch commercial operations. It will also give smaller players the opportunity to scale up their business without the burden of high capital expenditures," Globe added.
Mislatel Consortium - composed of Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company, Udenna Corporation subsidiary Chelsea Logistics, and China Telecom - was the only bidder that passed the preliminary evaluation of selection documents conducted Wednesday at the NTC.
The two other bidders, Sear Telecom-Tier1 Consortium and Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Company (PT&T), were disqualified although they have three days within which to file a motion for reconsideration.
Sear-Tier1 failed to submit the P700-million participation security while PT&T lacked a Certification of Technical Capability from the NTC.
Acting Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr. said the selection documents of the two other bidders would be re-assessed if their motion for reconsideration were granted.
Read: China Telecom-led Mislatel declared as 3rd telco
Depending on their commitments, the two other bidders could still win over Mislatel in three days, Rio added. (MVI/SunStar Philippines)