By Aerol John Pateña/PNA
MANILA — The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) stressed that it did not give undue favor to Mislatel Consortium in its decision to provisionally award it the third telco slot.
Mislatel, a joint venture of Udenna Corporation and China Telecom, won the bidding by default after Sear Telecom and the Philippine Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (PT&T) were disqualified due to lack of required documents, according to DICT Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr.
“PT&T and Sear Telecom were disqualified because of their own doing, not due to Dennis Uy. We did not look at personalities. We only looked at documents,” Rio said in a television interview on Wednesday.
The National Telecommunications Commission also junked last Monday separate motions for reconsideration filed by Sear Telecom and PT&T to appeal their disqualification.
Rio reiterated that the new major telco player must have the financial and technical capability to compete with existing players PLDT and Globe Telecom in delivering communication services to the public.
“The new telco must be able to perform and put its money where its mouth is,” according to the DICT official.
Mislatel has committed to provide Internet speeds of 55Mbps covering 84 percent of the population with capital expenditures (capex) of around PHP250 billion over a five year period.
The company stands to lose PHP24 billion or 10 percent of its capex for the commitment period.
The DICT hopes to confirm the new major player before the end of the year.
