Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) plans to auction unused and unassigned frequencies by mid-2017. The regulator thus hopes to attract a third player on the domestic telecoms market. The NTC will offer the portfolio of spectrum in one bundle, Business world reports, citing Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba. However, the Commission is yet to discuss the Terms of Reference with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Cordoba added.
“We plan to auction it as one whole [because] if you bid it out piecemeal the one who will get it will also not be able to compete... our idea is one group should be able to get it to enable it to become a third player”, Cordoba said. “Maybe we’ll do that next year. We’ll try to finish it by the middle of next year”, he added.
The frequencies on NTC’s inventory include the 3G frequency of Connectivity Unlimited Resources Enterprise (CURE), surrendered by PLDT after buying out Digital Telecommunications Philippines in 2011, as well as the frequencies returned by PLDT and Globe Telecom after their recent joint acquisition of San Miguel Corp’s (SMC) telco assets – 20 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz, and other radio frequencies 2,500 MHz, 3,500 MHz bands.
According to the NTC chief, there is demand for the unassigned frequencies with more participants “interested to become the third player”. Among the local players who expressed interest in the tender is Converge ICT and Now Telecom, Cordoba also said.
According to Cordoba, the Commission will hire a consultant to determine the valuation of the frequencies it plans to offer. He earlier said the move is meant to attract a third player, thus existing operators would not be allowed to participate in the auction. PLDT and Globe currently control around 78 percent of all available frequencies.
