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By Darwin G. Amojelar, Reporter
BESIDES delays in the issuance of
rules on new telecom offerings, the National Telecommunications
Commission (NTC) likewise is taking long in resolving pending rifts
between and among companies, based on petitions they submitted to
the regulator.
In a letter to NTC, Philippine
Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) sought regulatory action on its
illegal bypass complaint against Philippine Telegraph and Telephone
Corp. (PT&T)—a motion the country’s largest telco first
filed four years ago.
“It is regrettable that to date
no action has been taken against PT&T by NTC on the basis of our
complaint,” Restituto M. Arevalo, PLDT assistant vice-president
for inter-carrier transactions and proceedings said in the letter.
An illegal toll bypass operation
call occurs when a caller places an international call through
bypass equipment, allowing the international call to be registered
as a local call, avoiding interconnection rate charges and depriving
its operator of the supposed international inbound revenues.
In August 2003, PLDT had filed a
complaint against PT&T for the alleged offense committed in
Metro Manila and in Cebu City.
Besides PLDT, Globe Telecom Inc.
likewise has complained to the regulator about delays in its
unit’s broadband wireless access (BWA) network expansion arising
from NTC’s failure to resolve a pending complaint filed by its
rival.
In a separate letter, Froilan M.
Castelo, Globe vice president for regulatory affairs, said unit
Innove Communications Inc. is prepared to invest $2.1 million for
the expansion of its network if only the NTC issues a permit that
would allow the company to purchase the equipment.
“Invove is ready to continue
the deployment of BWA services in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao in
accordance with its sales forecast, were if not for the refusal of
the [NTC] to issue further permits and licenses in favor of Innove
allegedly in the light [of the pending case filed by Textron
Corp.],” Castelo told the NTC.
Textron had filed a complaint
that Innove’s signal allegedly interfered with its own.
The NTC, on December 13, 2005,
assigned to Innove a 450-megahertz spectrum for BWA; a frequency
similar to that it gave to Textron in September 2005.
“As it cannot put up additional
equipment and capacity due to the non-issuance of permits and
licenses, Innove has reached a minimum 90-percent utilization of its
network and, thus, is experiencing congestion problems to the
detriment of public service,” Castelo said.
To date, Innove already spent
P24.75 million for the operation and maintenance of its current BWA
service. It has 99 base stations for BWA with a capacity of 26,000
subscribers serving Metro Manila, Metro Davao, Rizal, Olongapo and
Subic. Of the 99 base stations, 78 are on-air, with 18 ready for
deployment, 2 spare stations and a test bed.
“Without doubt, [a] private
service cannot be held hostage by the filing of [a case] for alleged
interference especially so when Textron has neither the network nor
the operation [allegedly interfered with] in the first place,”
Castelo said.
He said Textron is holding onto
its BWA spectrum given a memorandum of agreement with the Telephone
Office.
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