Be open to competing with ‘more players’, telcos urged
After an influential Chinese billionaire voiced concerns over the country’s slow internet speed, the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) said the telco industry should be open to competing with “more players” to improve the quality of services.
PCC made this statement days after being dealt a legal blow in its first major court battle that many consider a litmus test of the effectivity of the over-a-year-old antitrust watchdog.
Earlier this month, the Court of Appeals barred the PCC from conducting a comprehensive review of the nearly P70-billion purchase of San Miguel Corp.’s telco assets by giants Globe Telecom and PLDT. The ruling, dated Oct. 18, was made public earlier this week.
Also in the same week, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, founder and executive chair of e-commerce giant Alibaba, said in a forum in Manila that the country’s internet speed was “no good,” a remark which PCC framed as a “wake-up call.”
“Jack Ma just experienced what we Filipinos have been suffering from all this time. This serves as a wake-up call on telecom companies to deliver on their promise a year after they acquired the frequencies,” PCC said.
The watchdog said its role was to foster competition in the telco market, which would require more players to come in, a move that is expected to help ramp up the country’s internet speed, deemed one of the slowest in Southeast Asia.
“This means opening up the market to more players and leveling the playing field between incumbents and entrants, between big and small players. This translates to more choices, better quality, and affordable services to consumers,” PCC said.
The decision of the Court of Appeals came despite an ongoing PCC petition in the Supreme Court, seeking an intervention in order to scrutinize the landmark deal between the country’s telco giants.
While the decision kept the PCC from doing the review of the purchase, the court said it “does not remove the power of the PCC to conduct a postacquisition review to ensure that no anticompetitive conduct is committed by the parties.”
