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Malacañang on Monday announced that President Rodrigo Duterte has offered China the privilege of becoming the third telecommunications carrier in the country.
“The telecomunications duopoly in the country is about to end,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a Palace briefing.
The local telecoms industry is dominated by Smart Communications and Globe Telecom.
“During the bilateral talks between President Duterte and the Chinese Premier, President Duterte offered to the People’s Republic of China the privilege to operate the third telecom’s carrier in the country,” Roque said.
Roque said Duterte’s offer to China came after the Philippine government signed with an affiliate of Facebook a project entitled the “Luzon Bypass” of the Pacific Light Cable Network, which would provide bandwidth of two terabits per second.
“These two terabits is equivalent to the current capacity of the duopoly operators today,” he said.
The Palace official explained that agreement with the subsidiary of Facebook should have been signed as early as December 2016, however, it was not signed by the former Secretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
“And this was one of the areas pinpointed by Cabinet investigators as an area of conflict of interest for the former Secretary of DICT,’ he said.
“It was further reported by the special investigating committee that the former DICT Secretary likewise may have prevented the earlier break up of the duopoly by delaying the use of satellites as viable option,” he added.
Roque assured the public that with the President’s political will, Filipinos could now “look forward now to better telecommunications, not just in terms of cellular technology but also in terms of internet speed as well as access.”
“I repeat, the announcement is that duopoly, that telecom’s duopoly is about to end with the entry of the Facebook subsidiary as well as the offer by the President of the People’s Republic of China to operate the third telecom’s carrier,” he said. /cbb