Globe on Thursday asked PLDT to return “excess frequencies” as the number of its assigned frequencies were not proportionate with its subscriber base, giving it an unfair advantage.
“The regulator has to rationalize the distribution of frequencies,” Globe’s chief legal counsel, Rodolfo Salalima, told reporters.
“Mathematically, we are under-matched.”
Salalima said Globe’s assigned frequencies against PLDT’s now stood at a ratio of 1:3.5 in favor of PLDT.
“Such an uneven distribution of the state’s scarce but powerful public resource does not speak well of the [National Telecommunication Commission] as the regulatory body and of free competition in the market in this country,” Salalima said.
PLDT said Globe was cherry-picking its data to support its accusations.
“They are actually the most inefficient network based on their subscribers per network, which should be the basis of efficiency in frequency allocation,” Rey Espinosa, head of PLDT’s regulatory affairs and policy unit, told a separate press briefing.
He said PLDT’s frequency utilization of 406,000 subscribers per megahertz of frequency was much higher than Globe’s 303,000 per megahertz. PLDT had 45.64 million subscribers using a total of 112.5 megahertz of mobile and broadband spectrum, while Globe had only 26.5 million users using 87.5 megahertz of frequency.
Even Sun Cellular, which had about 14 million subscribers, was more efficient in using its 42.5 megahertz of mobile and broadband frequencies, Espinosa said.
“Their motivation in questioning frequency allocation is they basically want the NTC to cure their inefficiency. What Globe wants is for the government to protect them,” he said.
He cited the practices of the Ayala Group in its shopping malls and other properties, where PLDT could not put up offices to deliver its services.
“That is what you call restraint on trade and competition. The Ayala Group has no basis to accuse us of monopoly,” Espinosa said.
Globe on Wednesday asked the National Telecommunications Commission to stop the merger of PLDT and Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc., which owns Sun Cellular, claiming the transaction would undermine competition in the industry.
The company said the P74-billion deal to acquire Digitel would give PLDT a commanding 70 percent of the market, but PLDT said Globe was sour-graping over the bid it lost.
“This is just a negotiating tactic. If it’s not regulatory blackmail, it’s a regulatory free ride that they want,” Espinosa said.
