That’s what Ernest Cu, president of Globe Telecom Inc., wants for his birthday on Friday.
As to how much, he said: “Just enough for us.”
At a briefing on Wednesday, where the company announced a 1-percent hike in profits in the first quarter to P2.99 billion, Globe officials said they are hoping that Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) can give up some of its frequencies to level the playing field just like what AT&T in the United States is willing to do.
“The NTC [National Telecommunications Commission] should level the playing field, however that’s done. Just like what it did in early days of 3G. Concessions should be given,” Cu said.
According to Globe counsel Rodolfo Salalima, the US government is currently reviewing the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. But unlike PLDT and Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc., the dominant AT&T, Salalima said, is willing to sacrifice and waive some of its “monopolistic powers” in “the interest of the public.”
Globe is pressing for the return of frequencies or the realignment of spectrum by the NTC. This is the hot debate now between the country’s largest phone company and the second largest operator. Regulators have set a public hearing for this on May 23.
In terms of absolute number of frequencies, PLDT has a 3.76:1 ratio in its favor. For 3G frequency alone, the ratio is 4.4:1 in favor of PLDT. Globe services 26.5 million subscribers.
“With the amount of frequencies allotted to us, we are practically serving 268,000 subscribers for every 1 Megahertz (MHz) of spectrum we have. PLDT/Smart/Digitel service only 161,000 subscribers for every 1 MHz of spectrum they have. So, we are not the inefficient network here,” Salalima said—an obvious response to PLDT’s allegation that Globe is the “most inefficient network.”
PLDT still needs to secure the green light from the NTC before the P69.2-billion share-swap deal with Digitel is deemed final, which is targeted to happen on or before June 30.
While PLDT revealed that Globe also placed a bid to buyout Digitel, Globe insisted that given the existing valuation, Globe “would not have offered the buyout price of PLDT and as such would not have been an attractive option for us.”
And even if Globe or its principal shareholders Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. had bought Digitel, Globe claimed PLDT would still be the dominant carrier and will have a bigger share of radio frequency.
“Bottomline, the imbalance created by a single entity controlling more than 84 percent of the total usable radio frequency spectrum resource is not conducive for a competitive industry because it will make it more costly and more expensive for competitors to compete effectively versus PLDT with Digitel,” said Salalima.
