3rd telco aspirant buys stake in satellite firm

The LCS-TierOne Consortium, among the groups vying to become the country’s third telco player, announced the acquisition of a stake in an operator of broadband satellites.

The group, which includes Ilocos politician Luis Chavit Singson, did not name the operator, but noted that the deal was part of its goal to provide internet connectivity across the country at a lower cost.

“Our investment in the satellite operator with a footprint capable of delivering broadband across the archipelago reflects our desire to offer the highest committed level of service, as mandated by Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC),” TierOne Consortium chair Jonathon Bentley-Stevens said.

Satellite broadband has been used by commercial operators to plug gaps in their land-based networks. The platform can deliver high internet speed at competitive prices.

However, experts claimed it was susceptible to latency, or lag, as well weather disturbances.

Ed Millana, president of consortium partner Millawave Systems, which owns and operates a teleport and delivers satellite communications services, said in the statement that the application was viable in the Philippines.

He said their soon-to-launch high-throughput broadband satellite will offer 1.3 Gigabits per second of bandwidth per transponder, capable of delivering up to 100 megabits per second to users.

“Its broadband prices will be disruptively low, compared to legacy satellites—lower than the existing wireless broadband offers from the dominant telcos,” the consortium noted.

TierOne Consortium’s portable cell sites, called Telcos-In-A-Box—a modified, quick-deployable, solar-powered cargo containers with satellite transceivers, WiFi and LTE Radio Access, and retail sales sections—are meant for distribution to surrounding subscribers.

Bentley-Stevens explained that the satellite-enabled Telcos-In-A-Box would be offered to Filipinos as franchises, democratizing the ownership and delivery of telecommunications services across the country.