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A UNIT of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has set
aside more than half a billion pesos this year for the rollout of
its direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television service.
Orlando Vea, MediaQuest Holdings Inc. president,
told reporters the company would spend an initial P700 million for
its DTH service, which will be launched by middle of this year.
MediaQuest is a wholly owned subsidiary of the
PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund. Its entry to the DTH business would give
Dream Satellite competition. Dream, owned by former PLDT chairman
Antonio Cojuangco through Philippine Multi-Media System Inc. (PMSI),
has about 100,000 subscribers nationwide. PMSI is under corporate
rehabilitation with outstanding liabilities amounting to P1.15
billion.
Last year, MediaQuest purchased GV Broadcasting
Systems Inc., a licensed DTH satellite TV provider.
GV Broadcasting has a congressional franchise to
install, maintain and operate nationwide broadcasting stations and
such other systems, facilities or structures for origination,
reception, processing, broadcast audio or video information.
Vea had said that the acquisition of GV
Broadcasting will harmonize the company’s foray into mobile TV,
Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) and DTH service.
MediaQuest subsidiary MediaScape in cooperation
with Smart Communication Inc. offers myTV, which is broadcast using
the mobile TV platform called Digital Video Broadcasting—Handheld
(DVB-H).
Its parent company, PLDT on Tuesday reported a
first-quarter net income of P10.4 billion, a 21-percent increase
from the P8.6 billion in the same period last year.
Excluding foreign exchange gains or losses and
other non-recurring income, the country’s biggest telco turned in
profits of P9.3 billion, an increase of 11 percent from the P8.4
billion last year.
PLDT, partly owned by Hong Kong’s First
Pacific Co. Ltd. and Japan’s NTT group, said consolidated service
revenues were up 6 percent year on year to P34.9 billion.
Wireless service revenues rose to P22.5 billion
for the first three months, an 8-percent increase, largely due to
subsidiaries Smart Communications Inc. and Pilipino Telephone Corp.
-- Darwin G. Amojelar
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