President Rodrigo R. Duterte fulfilled his State of the Nation Address (SONA) promise of a new major player in the telecommunications industry yesterday in the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity Issuance Ceremony (CPCN) at Malacañang.
Duterte personally joined NTC Commissioner Gamaliel A. Cordoba and Department of Information and Communications Technology(DICT) Sec. Gregorio B. Honasan II in awarding the CPCN to MISLATEL Chairman Dennis Uy.
“President Duterte’s third telco initiative coupled with the implementation of the mandatory unlocking of phones, the mobile number portability act, the implementation of the Common Tower Policy, the removal of text and call interconnection charges, and the implementation of the National Broadband Plan will greatly benefit the Filipino consumer,” said Cordoba in his speech.
Said reforms likewise fulfilled Duterte’s SONA promise to improve the third telco’s “odds of success in an industry that has long been dominated by a well-entrenched duopoly”to ensure that its entry will provide the best possible services at reasonably accessible prices.
With the issuance of the CPCN, the NTC gave MISLATEL 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 will roll-out under the name Dito Telecommunity to deliver its commitment of 37.03% 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% of the population with an average speed of 55 Mbps.
Its commitments were secured by performance bond amounting to 25.7 billion pesos.
“Accompanying this bond is a commitment – that I will hold you to that commitment – that you will improve the country’s prevailing Internet speed from 4.5 Mbps to 55 Mbps,” said Duterte.
The President further challenged MISLATEL saying, “Break the prevailing duopoly in the telecommunications industry and fulfill your commitment to provide better telco services to our people.”
