UNABLE TO COVER UNSERVED, UNDERSERVED AREAS

Poe tells DITO: 'Serbisyo muna bago prangkisa'

DITO Telecommunity Corporation needs to prove first that it is worthy of a franchise renewal before the Senate committee on public services decides to grant it such, panel chairperson Senator Grace Poe has said.

"Wala pa naman silang napapatunayan, bakit naman namin sila bibigyan ng prangkisa agad-agad. Serbisyo muna bago prangkisa," Poe said in a statement released Monday.

"Titingnan at susuriin natin kung talagang nabigyan ba nila ng mabilis na internet ang mga lugar na dapat bigyan ng serbisyo," she added.

DITO's franchise is set to expire in 2023 and Poe's committee is currently deliberating its application for renewal.

Unserved, underserved areas

During a Senate hearing on December 7, Poe asked DITO if the unserved and underserved areas in the country had been covered during their first year of operations as the country's third telco player.

"It is quite rational that when our commitments are time-bound, we go through the most optimum way of meeting them and since we're only given one year to achieve the 37% population coverage, we prioritized areas that are more densely populated," DITO chief technology officer Rodolfo Santiago said.

"These are the urban centers nationwide including Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao," he added.

Quite unsatisfied with the strategy, Poe pointed out that a franchise was awarded to Dito to ensure that those without access to telco services would be covered.

"It's also part of your contract to set up in unserved and underserved areas," Poe told the DITO officials.

But Santiago said the lawmakers should not limit their perspective on the first year of its operations.

"Hindi dapat natin ito tingnan na first year lang na 37%. We should look at it as a five-year program of 84%," Santiago said in response, also pointing out that covering unserved areas is not indicated in the CPCN.

Nonetheless, he said the underserved and unserved areas would eventually be covered as DITO continues to roll out its services in the coming years.

Santiago further said the COVID-19 pandemic also caused DITO to set up equipment in areas outside the densely populated locations they have initially prioritized.

"The impact of COVID has forced us to reprioritize some alternate areas so we can achieve the 37% even if we cannot work in our original priority areas," he said.

Under the CPCN which was awarded to DITO in July 2019, it should provide a speed of 27 megabits per second to cover 37% percent of the population in its first year of operations. Otherwise, it will lose its P24 billion performance bond.

However, due to delays in delivery of material supplies from China amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Telecommunications Commission previously gave DITO six more months to comply.

Poe earlier said her panel will review the third party assessment of DITO's deliverables in January 2021.—AOL, GMA News