PLDT on DITO: ‘They will take a long time to catch up’

Telecommunications behemoth PLDT Inc. is putting its best foot forward against upcoming competitors such as newcomer DITO Telecommunity Corporation, which will be having its debut next week.

However, the company said that the new player will take a long time to catch up with both PLDT and Globe.

DITO, the so-called third telco and telecommunications duopoly challenger, is set to  launch commercially on March 8 in key areas in the Visayas and Mindanao before eventually making its services available nationwide within the year. 

During a virtual press conference on Thursday, PLDT officials were asked how the company is preparing for its upcoming rival in the telecommunications space.

“We cannot comment on what DITO is doing, but what I can really tell you is as far as we have information in the areas DITO is launching, they cannot [get] even close on the coverage we have already,” Smart Communications Next Generation Technology Solutions Advisor Joachim Horn said.

So far, DITO said it has built 1,900 cell sites, which can cover 37% of the population —meeting its commitments during the selection process for the new major telco player.

“So, therefore they will take a long time to catch up, even in remote areas because it’s not easy to roll out a network in no time,” Horn said, noting that both of DITO's  competitors, PLDT and Globe, have built a network of more than 16,000 cell sites.

“I would not be too concerned about DITO because we will be always ahead of our network. We will not stop working every day. We are benchmarking ourselves on a daily basis and we want to step forward and we want to lead the industry from a performance perspective. We are not done by no means,” he said.

Emphasizing its aggressive network build up, PLDT has set a capital expenditure of P88 billion to P92 billion this year.

The capex will be used to roll out 5G over 3,000 base transceiver stations (BTS), over 4,000 4G BTS, over 1.7 million fiber to the home ports, and 125,000 kilometers of fiber.

“We will continue to push, I think this is the best defense to whoever wants to challenge us,” Horn said.

Nonetheless, PLDT chief revenue officer Alfredo Panlilio said, “We view competition always a threat.”

“We want to monitor what they’re doing and we will act accordingly. But for them to compete really hard with us they have to have a network that’s really working on the ground. We don’t belittle any competition,” Panlilio said. — BM, GMA News