House approves franchise of Villar’s telco firm

MANILA, Philippines — The Villar Group has moved a step closer to entering the country’s telecommunications industry, which at present is dominated by the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and its subsidiary Smart Communications and Ayala’s Globe Telecom.

Manuel Paolo Villar, son of tycoon Manuel Villar and Sen. Cynthia Villar, said the House of Representatives has approved the measure providing a congressional franchise to Streamtech Systems Technologies, the group’s telco arm.

They now need to secure the approval of the Senate.

“We will be authorized to provide services once we have that. We can do it the next day,” the younger Villar said.

He said the company plans to start with fixed-line network instead of mobile and would like to start offering the service to its subdivisions.

“The first thing we’re going to do….the main thing we’re doing right now is in our subdivisions. We have over 300,000 houses. So for example, if you buy a house, we want it to have high speed internet,” he said.

Villar said this is the initial plan, but eventually the company can also get into mobile.

“I think we’re focusing right now on broadband. That is the most logical because we have a ready base of customers. That’s the first thing we’ll do and after that, we will see,” he said.

Villar, who is also the CEO of Vista Land, said providing high speed internet to the company’s customers would be a good strategy because Vista Land has a footprint nationwide, spanning various cities and municipalities.

Vista Land has an established presence in about 100 cities and municipalities across 37 provinces and intends to focus on the development of communicities, integrated urban developments combining lifestyle retail, prime office space, universities, healthcare, themed residential developments and leisure components.

The target is to eventually be present in 200 cities and municipalities.

Aspiring telco players have been having a difficult time entering the industry. The massive cost involved – about $1 billion in capital expenditures a year – is a major challenge and barrier to entry for any telecom player, especially one that plans to also build a nationwide mobile network.

Villar said they are targeting to offer a very competitive product.

He said the company got the approval of the House of Representatives over the past few months and is now waiting for the Senate’s nod.