December 8, 2020
Moderated by Sec. Harry Roque:
Kung inyo pong natatandaan noong ika-5 SONA ni Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte sa mga telcos ang "Kindly improved your services before December. Tell us now if you can't really improve on it, because I will work work... The next two years will be spent improving the telecommunications of this country without you."
Alam ng Pangulo ang sentimiento at reklamo ng ordinaryong mamamayan tungkol sa ating telecommunications company na Smart at Globe at ngayon ay may bago pa.
Ang sabi pa ng Pangulo ay "The patience of the Filipino is reaching its limit. I will be the one to articulate the anger of the Filipino people."
Napapanahon na ito lalo na nasa gitna tayo ng pandemya na kung saan ang ating mga kababayan ay umaasa sa digital technology habang marami ang nasa work from home at nasa transaksyon tulad ng shopping ay ginagawa na online.
Al Panlilio - President, Smart Communications Inc.:
Alam po natin during the pandemic na ang trabaho po natin ay to keep every Filipino connected. We worked very hard to do that despite the lockdown.
Marami pong naging isyu noong una sa lockdown kasi hindi po makaikot ang mga tao namin pero we're able to find a way.
We actually gave about 800,000 customers free upgrades, free speed boosts, and also internet services. For postpaid ng Smart, nagbigay rin kami ng free data allocation.
We work to help support the economic recovery. We have packages of work at home and study at home kasi alam namin everybody was already at home working ang studying and also e-commerce kasi naging livelihood na rin po nila ang online.
We are supporting the government in a lot of ways like the 911...
Nagbigay din po kami ng libreng access to some certain websites like DepEd, CHED and Red Cross.
We continue to invest po kasi ang aming priority is really to have good customer experience. We have been investing the past 5 years with Php 260 billion and last year alone Php 73 billion ang ginastos namin.
Our current wireless population coverage is 96% of the Philippines with an average download speed of 23 mbps as of November 2020.
But what I really want to highlight there is the number of our cell sites that we have put on service. We have now 10,069 sites, 58,538 base sations, 29,526 4G Base Stations.
I also want to highlight that we have the biggest fiber optic network sa bansa kasi importanteng ma-link ang mga base stations with fiber optic and iyong fiber offering sa mga consumers.
We have over 422,000 kilometers of fiber nationwide.
And we are close to 4 million fiber ports that are available today at importante po sa atin ang mga data centers kasi as you know... itong gateway po.. a lot of our traffic comes from abroad and that is extensive so what we are trying to do is to convince like Amazon, Alibaba or Google to actually host locally para hindi na ganon kamahal.
So at present we have 95% cities and municipalities covered and an average download speed of 32.8 mbps in Metro Manila.
Ang gusto po namin is really to elevate the Philippines to global standards.
Sa mobile po, ang aming target by next year is really Mentro Manila and key cities at least 30 mbps po siya consistently and as we move forward in 2022 with 51% population coverage at 60 mbps, in 2023: 70% population coverage at 50 mbps, in 2024: 80% population coverage at 60 mbps and in 2025: 84% population coverage at 60 mbps.
May mga plans pa po kami na 10 mbps... na gawing 20 mbps ang minimum average broadband speed.
Regarding to the major effort that we started in August to migrate all our copper subscribers which is problematic to fiber services.
And again, kailangan po natin para ma-achieve ang mga speed na ito is tama ang devices. Kung mali po 'yong devices, hindi po natin maachieve ang tamang speed.
Based on dependent services, ang PLDT average download speed ay 30.68 mbps compared to PH average of 26.08 mbps.
Ang PLDT-Smart din po ang fastest fixed and mobile networks sa unang anim na buwan ng 2020 ayon sa Ookla.
For wireless: ang average download speed ng Smart ay 19.45 mbps na mas mataas sa PH average sped na 16.89 mbps.
Ernest Cu - President and CEO, Globe Telecom, Inc.:
Ang aming ambition is to continually upgrade the network experience for all technologies na mayroon kami. This means accelerating cell sites, 4G/LTE everywhere and 5G where it matters, fast tracking fiber to the home.
Ang capex namin for 2020 has reached about Php 50 billion.
This is just a component of about Php 256 billion that we've spent on our network over the last 6 years.
1,857 permits were issued from July to November this year. This is a record for us. Karamihan ng LGU ay tumutulong na rin, marami ang ilang araw ay nire-release na ang permit.
Coupled with itong permit issuance, nakahabol kami and I think we will be able to meet itong target na 1,300 additional sites for the year.
On fiberization upgrade: Inaamin po namin na nag-focus po ang resources namin noong sa wireless dahil mabilis makarating ang wireless sa ating mga kababayan pero nagbago nga ho ang gamit ng tao kaya mas naging aggressive kami sa fiberization. We should be hitting 600,000 lines additional in 2020.
We have all contributed to bringing the speed of the country up significantly to 28 mbps for fixed broadband now and about 19 mbps for mobile.
For 2021 malaki ang ambition namin. We are hoping to spend over what we did here in 2020 with the improved permitting po we hope to spend about Php 70 billion.
Atty. Adel Tamano - Chief Administrative Office, Dito Telecommunity Corporation:
Our aims are actually quite ambitious. We want to double download speed by year 1 of our operations and quadruple it by year 2 and achieve 87% population coverage by 2025.
We are very hopeful that come January 7, 2021 we will pass our first audit and we will have our commercial launch in March 2021.
Jesus Romero - Chief Operating Officer, Converge ICT Solutions Inc.:
Ang Converge po ay simple lang ang objective. It is to deliver as many high speed broadband lines to Philippine household and businesses nationwide.
We are already at about 3 1/2 million ports. That is the target for the end of the year and we plan to add more for 2021.
For 2021, 7% of total ports in Visayas and Mindanao to be deployed because we are still building our backbone.
Ang objective is to makarating tayo sa 55% household coverage nationwide.
Para mangyari po ito, nagtatayo po si Converge ng domestic backbone mula Appari hanggang sa Gen. Santos. Halos tapos na po ang backbone sa Luzon. Nag-ooperate na ang Converge mula La Union hanggang Sorsogon.
We are building a domestic submarine backbone.
Sa international, pinapalaki po natin, ngayon po ang capacity ng Converge ay 1.4 Tbps at gumagamit po kami ng 8 cable systems at 7 cable landing stations.
Gamaliel Cordoba – Commissioner, NTC:
During that time simula noong March ay talaga nagkaroon kaming problema roon sa surge ng demand ng mga 500% ang ating estimate.
Nahirapan ang ating mga telcos na magpalabas ng tao dahil po roon sa mga lockdowns. Doon siguro naramdaman ng ating Pangulo na medyo sumama ang service ng telecommunications na kung saan nahirapan mag-maintain o mag-roll out. Kaya ang ginawa po namin ay nakipagtulungan kami sa IATF para makakuha ng exemption para sa mga telcos personnel kaya naman po nakahabol at gumanda na ang serbisyo starting May onwards.
Marami pa pong kailangan gawin at gaya ng sinabi namin sa Senate at Congress ay ang problema rin namin na napakababa ng penalty na aming pwedeng i-impose sa telecommunications companies.
Ang ginagamit po kasi na batas as of now ay ang 1936 Public Service Act. Based on that po ay Php 200 per violation per day ang pwede ipataw kaya kami po ay humihiling sa sa Kongreso na kung pwede pataasin sa Php 2 million per violation per day.
Because of his (Pangulong Duterte) speeches at kaniyang warnings sa mga LGUs, umakyat ang release ng issuance ng construction permits by 600%
Based on third party audit at iyong pag-test sa kanila (telcos), gumanda naman po ang kanilang serbisyo, nagkaroon ng improvement.
Simula noong umupo ang ating Pangulo noong July of 2016, tumaas na ng 262.70% ang speed ng ating fixed broadband. Sa mobile, umakyat simula July 2016 from 7.44 mbps to 18.49 mbps.
-We are pushing for the commercial operations of DITO Telecommunity. They are going to start in March 2021, pero baka pwede paagahin kasi ang talagang whip sa laban na ito ay ang threat of competition.
The Philippines ranks 32nd out of 50 countries as of October in terms of fixed broadband speed, 34th in terms of mobile broadband speed.
Ang mga bansa na nasa taas natin, ang gumagastos para sa infrastructure ay gobyerno. So they are not marred in red tape in LGUs.
Commentaires