PT&T inks deal with China tech company

Philippine Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (PT&T) signed its first partnership with a Chinese company—a technology supplier—as it looks to participate in the government’s wireless broadband service.

PT&T told the Philippine Stock Exchange that it had signed a memorandum of agreement with Chengdu Zhongxing Tiantong Technology Corp., a leading supplier of wireless and satellite communication technologies.

This is the first concrete move taken by PT&T since it was acquired by businessmen Salvador Zamora II and Benjamin Bitanga earlier this year.

The two want to transform PT&T, which has a long history in the telco sector although later crippled by heavy debt, into the country’s third telco that would compete with incumbents PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom.

PT&T said its agreement with Chengdu Zhongxing Tiantong was to study the feasibility of joining the government’s free wireless broadband project.

This refers to one of the key initiatives of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) called the free wi-fi internet access in public places project. The DICT aims to reach over 13,000 public spaces across 145 cities and 1,489 municipalities. —MIGUEL R. CAMUS