Filtered By: Money
Money

Singson-led group buys equity stake in satellite operator for third telco bid


The consortium of TierOne and the LCS Group of Companies has signed a billion-dollar deal covering the acquisition of “substantial” equity stake in an international broadband satellite operator, the group said Thursday.

The move is related to the group’s  bid in bagging the third major telecommunications slot in the Philippines.

The transaction covers a broadband satellelite for the country, said Luis Chavit Singson, chariman and president of the LCS Group of Companies, at a  press conference in Quezon City.

“We have just signed up ... the other day. We have our own satellite in the Philippines,” Singson noted, saying the satellite will be launched in August or September next year, especially if the consortium becomes the third telco operator.

Singson declined to name the satellite operator, citing the “sensitivity” of the ongoing search for the new major player.

The consortium bought bid documents worth P1 million, expressing its intent to bid for the third telco slot.

Once the high throughput broadband satellite is launched, the consortium said it will be able to offer 1.3 Gigabits per second (Gbps) of bandwidth per transponder, capable of delivering connectivity speeds of up to 100 Megabits per second (Mbps).

“Once launched, our high throughput broadband satellite will offer instant coverage,” said Ed Millana, president of Millwave Systems Corp., a consortium member.

“Think of it as a ready network while we roll out the domestic undersea backbone, which we still will be largely reliant on,” he said.

The consortium will be able to cover the entire Philippine archipelago within a year, said TierOne chairman Jonathon Bentley Stevens.

“What we can say is that we are buying equity in the satellite (operator). We will be an owner. We can control the speed, the direction, the shaping of the signal, all of these things,” he said.

“The international company will be providing all these things to us,” Stevens added.

With its own satellite in place, the consortium will be able to lower its prices to one-twentieth of what incumbents Globe Telecom Inc. and Smart Communications Inc. are charging their customers, Millana noted.

“If their price is P100, our price is P5, so it’s one-twentieth,” he said.

According to Millana, the consortium plans to roll out an initial 20,000 cellular shops which will also serve as the company's cellular sites, removing the need for a cellular site.

The cellular shops are planned to range from 10-footer, 20-footer, and 40-footer storage units, and are envisioned to be located in every municipality.

“We are 7,641 islands. We cannot be running a telco the way it’s been run in the past. We have to rely on new technology like broadband satellite for coverage and on our fellow Filipinos for distribution,” Singson said.

Singson said it has also tapped the Councilor's League of the Philippines for the easy deployment of the cellular shops which are set to be solar-powered and portable.

The selection process uses using a point system under the Highest Committed Level of Service.

Earlier this month, Rio said the DICT stands firm on naming the third telco before the end of the year—despite criticisms that the timeline is too tight for prospective bidders.

Among those interested in the third telco slot are China Telecom, NOW Telecom, Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Co., Telenor Group, Udenna Corp., and two other groups that declined to be named.

The bidding proper is scheduled on November 7, the first Wednesday of next month. —VDS, GMA News

LOADING CONTENT