Telcos press frequency reallocation

LOCAL telecommunications companies are ramping up a public campaign urging the government to reallocate San Miguel Corp.’s valuable 700 megahertz frequency, which they claimed would help them deliver better Internet services.

Globe Telecom released a statement yesterday citing The GSM Association, urging Asia-Pacific countries to “immediately” allocate the 700 MHz for mobile broadband use.

Globe and PLDT have pending applications with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) seeking their “fair share” of the frequency, which SMC said would be used with possible partner Telstra Corp. Ltd. of Australia to launch a powerful broadband service.

The statement cited GSMA as saying that “further delays in the use of the spectrum could result in billions of dollars worth of losses in incremental” economic growth.

The 700 MHz frequency, which is well suited to providing mobile broadband coverage indoors and over large areas, “can potentially increase countries’ gross domestic product impact by tenfold according to the GSMA”, the statement said.

Its Mobile Economy Asia study also found that the spectrum use could create 2.1 million additional jobs for the region by 2020.

The ITU reinforced GSMA’s findings by globally harmonizing the 700 MHz band and allocating it for LTE use in ITU Region 1, which covers Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, the statement from Globe showed.

ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICT), while GSMA is an association of mobile operators and related companies devoted to supporting the standardizing, deployment and promotion of the GSM mobile telephone system.

“The global harmonization of the 700 MHz frequency band that has been decided by WRC-15 paves the way for manufacturers and mobile operators to offer mobile broadband at an affordable price in currently underserved areas,” François Rancy, director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, said in the same statement.

PLDT regulatory affairs and policy head Ray Espinosa said that since 2008, Smart and its unit Smart broadband Inc had filed an application with the NTC to obtain a portion of 700 MHz frequency.

Globe general legal counsel Froilan Castelo said that in 2005, Globe wrote the NTC requesting for an allocation and assignment of frequencies within the 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands for its broadband wireless network.