MANILA, Philippines — Metro Manila and other key urban centers will get a first taste of Dito Telecommunity Corp.'s services while other areas, including those that are hardly reached by incumbent telecommunications players, would have to wait, company officials said Monday.
Because of the impact of coronavirus lockdowns, Dito had to recalibrate its plans and build its network in densely populated areas first so it can meet its promise of covering 37% of entire population in its first year, Rodolfo Santiago, company chief technology officer, told a Senate hearing on the renewal of Dito's legislative franchise.
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Apart from the capital, other areas where Dito is expected to begin operations in its first year are Cebu and Davao, Santiago added. "It is quite rational that when our commitments are timebound, we go to the most optimum way of meeting them," he said.
"Since we're only given one year to achieve the 37% population coverage, we prioritized areas that are most densely populated," he added.
President Rodrigo Duterte's frustrations over the services of incumbents PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. led to an accelerated bidding in 2018 where Dito won as the country's third major service provider. The new player is led by Davao-based tycoon Dennis Uy, who helped fund Duterte's presidential campaign in 2016, and is 40% owned by state-run China Telecommunications Corp.
The company had to delay its technical launch scheduled for July this year by 6 months due to business disruptions from lockdowns. During the technical launch, the government will look into Dito's capability to meet regulatory goals of providing 27 mbps minimum average internet speed to 84% of the population in 5 years.
For now, the company said it remains on track to its commercial launch in March next year. But that the essence of Dito's selection as third player was to finally reach both underserved and unserved areas prompted Sen. Grace Poe to question why the company had to prioritize urban areas in its initial rollout.
"You have all players already set up there (urban areas)," Poe, chair of the Senate Committee on Public Services, said.
"In your commitment, you said you will cover 37% of the population in the first year. I understand you will not be able to set up in all underserved and unserved areas but at least you should be able to present to this committee a few that you've already started doing," she added.
To be fair, engineer Pierre Tito Galla, co-founder of Democracy.Net.PH, told senators that Dito's decision to put urban areas first before expanding to remote areas is "not necessarily wrong" because "that's their business decision."
The question is, Galla said, whether the new telco player can cover the required number of barangays mandated in their certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN).
Under Dito's permit, the company has to connect 27,851 under its network on the fifth year of its commercial operations, with an initial 7,425 barangays required to be covered on the first year. In the same Senate hearing, Adel Tamano, company chief administrative officer, said Dito "will achieve this."
"I just want to assure this honorable committee that, first, we will abide by all our commitments in the CPCN, including the number of barangays," Tamano said.
"We want to get to the unserved areas, but allow us to say that on the fifth year we will go beyond our 84% requirement. Internally at Dito, we intend to hit 90% because to be very honest we intend to serve those unserved areas," he added.