The newly-created Department of Information and Communications Technology said Monday it plans to take back unused radio frequencies and distribute them to telecommunication companies as demand for Internet data continues to rise.
DICT Secretary Rodolfo Salalima said he ordered the National Telecommunications Commission to audit all radio frequencies to prevent “warehousing” of spectrum.
Spectrum is the ‘real estate’ on which telecommunication operators develop their respective network to deliver services to customers.
The amount of spectrum assigned to a company impacts on the cost of building capacity, overall network performance, ability to offer new multimedia services and general customer experience of wireless services.
“I don’t want public telecom entities to be warehousing frequencies without using it, but using it for speculative purpose. That is contrary to our Constitution,” Salalima said.
“If there are erring telcos or any entities which are simply not using their frequency, then we will have to recourse to the law by revoking their assigned frequencies,” he said.
Salalima said radio frequency was a scarce public resource and telecom companies needed to use it because of the blossoming use of data.
He said frequency was “crucial” to the operation of the telecom companies, as evident in PLDT Inc.’s and Globe Telecom Inc.’s recent acquisition of the telecom assets of San Miguel Corp.
“As to whether or not it’s prohibited or legal, I’m [deferring] the conclusion to the Philippine Competition Commission,” Salalima said.
Salalima, a former legal consultant of Globe, said he was not a part of the P70-billion joint acquisition of San Miguel telco assets by PLDT and Globe.
“I was completely kept in the dark. I was never consulted,” he said. The deal between PLDT, Globe and San Miguel was sealed on May 30.
PLDT and Globe filed separate cases against PCC after the latter declared that the P70-billion acquisition was not “deemed approved” and would need a review.
PCC earlier said PLDT and Globe should be guided by Section 17 of Philippine Competition Act which provides that “an agreement consummated in violation of this requirement to notify the commission shall be considered void and subject the parties to an administrative fine of one percent to five percent of the value of the transaction.”