PLDT and its wireless unit, Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), are advocating for regulatory costs that are inexpensive and reasonable to support network rollouts in unserved and underserved areas of the country.
Smart VP and Head of Regulatory Affairs Atty. Roy D. Ibay stated in a recent webinar on the Open Access in Data Transmission Act hosted by the Senate Economic Planning Office (SEPO) in collaboration with the Office of Senator Nancy S. Binay and the Senate Committee on Science and Technology that new legislation that aims to address or bridge the digital divide genuinely must ensure that data facility.
“If the goal of this measure is to achieve universal internet or data coverage, it must avoid the trap of failing to state the goal in the law and ensuring that data infrastructure or much-needed fiber finds its way into unserved and underserved areas,” Ibay added.
Ibay also mentioned that regulatory and radio spectrum fees play a role in enabling faster rollouts.
“To provide equitable and faster access to our services in priority rollout areas, there must be affordable and reasonable regulatory and radio spectrum fees,” said Ibay, adding that the prevalence of arbitrary regulatory fees imposed by some LGUs, such as tower fees, inspection fees, and audit fees, remains a “major roadblock for ICT growth.”
Ibay further stated that a universal spectrum user’s price based on a per kHz per population would boost rollout instead of the current wireless broadband formula, which discourages and penalizes the deployment of more wireless facilities by utilizing a per station per kilohertz computation.
“Smart spent Php2.4 billion on fees last year alone, which could have been spent on genuine physical facilities to improve communication services,” he said.
The continuous network deployment by PLDT and Smart across the country accounts for a substantial portion of PLDT’s capital expenditures, which reached P460.8 billion during the last ten years.
PLDT currently operates the country’s most extensive fiber infrastructure, with over 511,000 kilometers. This also helps Smart’s mobile networks cover 96% of the population from Batanes to Tawi-Tawi.
As of June, PLDT and Smart had secured approximately 22,000 fixed and wireless permits since the expedited government applications of tickets for passive telecom tower infrastructure (PTTI) last year. However, the equally critical reduction of fiber optic rollout licenses and fees has yet to be released.
Source: Smart Newsroom