Philippines to license three operators

date: March 12, 2002

The Philippines' telecom regulator, National Telecoms Commission (NTC) has indicated that it will allocate three 3G licenses, but did not say exactly when. It did say, however, that it will take at least three to five years before 3G takes off in the country.

NTC commissioner Eliseo M Rio said that a lack of interest existed amongst the incumbent operators and that there would be little point in trying to sell off licenses at the moment. "There are still no takers at present. We have not maximized applications for 2G... I think 2G and 2.5G will stay for the next five years," he said. The regulator also revealed that when licenses are allocated they will not be specific to one technology. It will be the operators decision which technology they choose to offer services over. As the NTC suggested, the country's telecoms market is still in the process of fully developing its 2G network and not quite ready for the deployment of the next generation just yet. Philippines' biggest mobile operator Smart Communications recently signed a US$300m (EUR344.35m) contract with Nokia for the supply of equipment to expand its digital mobile network. It is part of the company's PHP18bn (EUR404.56m) expansion program that is expected to give it extra capacity to service more customers. It also allows the company a chance to prepare for the introduction of WAP and upgrade to 3G, should it win a license.

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last updated: January 12, 2004

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