Palace monitoring effects of telecom consolidation

MANILA, Philippines – The days of cheap mobile phone services may soon be over after the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. took majority control of the Digital Telecommunications, whose Sun Cellular offered subscribers unlimited calls and text messaging for fixed fees, a Malacañang spokesman warned Friday.

“That’s certainly a concern. But let’s see how they deal with it. Let’s not prejudge what the merger’s impact will be, but certainly that’s something that we will be concerned about in behalf of the consumers,” Communications Development and Strategic Planning Secretary Ricky Carandang said at a news briefing in Malacañang.

Carandang said this concern should be taken into account by government regulators such as the National Telecommunications Commission.

“There’s no law right now that prevents this merger from happening, and this is the market doing what it does – resolving these questions,” Carandang said.

“Certainly the concerns of consumers would be taken into account by the NTC but at this point we’d probably have to look into that more before we can recommend any course of action,” he added.