Senator Win Gatchalian ordered the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to exercise its power to control and allocate spectrum, as provided under Republic Acts No. 3846 and 7925, to recall spectrum which have been allocated to PLDT and Globe but still remained unused.
According to Gatchalian, this will make room for a ‘truly competitive’ third player which is a crucial step in transforming the telecommunication sector in the country.
Gatchalian also called the Philippine Competition Commission to review the legality of the prevailing allocation of spectrum.
“The complete control of two powerful entities over the entire range of profitable spectrum is textbook anti-competitive behavior, and consumer welfare demands that we put a stop to it” Gatchalian explained.
Earlier this week, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) confirmed that all workhorse spectrum frequencies are completely controlled by PLDT and Globe –meaning, the 2G spectrum that support call and SMS services are regulated by the two telco giants.
With this, DICT said that this is a huge hindrance in reforming the telecommunications sector, making any potential third player limited to offering data-based services only.
Last year, the said issue came up during the legislative inquiry of the Senate Economic Affairs Committee on possible telco industry reforms.
The committee, later on, recommended that increasing the competition in the sector by stricter government regulation of the publicly-owned spectrum will help in improvement of the country’s telecommunication sector. (Camille de Guzman – PTV)
