5 players to enter broadband market

AS the trend in telecommunications is towards broadband, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) expects more than five players to enter the market for wireless broadband either through mobile or fixed line to capture the huge untapped market. Edgardo V. Cabarios, director of the NTC’s common carrier and authorization department, told Malaya Business Insight that after the merger of giant telecom firms Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., (PLDT) and Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (Digitel), the telecom market will be just as competitive as it used to be because more players in wireless broadband are expected to commercially launch their services anytime. The regulator has issued permits to operate a wireless broadband service to more than five players, but Cabarios declined to disclose their names. Cabarios expects the broadband market to continue to post triple-digit growth both in subscriber numbers and revenues, driven by lower prices of devices such as laptops, netbooks, smartphones and even of services through "unlimited" offerings. At present, the companies offering broadband services are Smart Communications Inc., Globe Telecoms, San Miguel Corp. unit Wi-Tribe and Bayan Telecommunication Inc. (Bayan). "There will be a lot of players in wireless broadband. It can be mobile or fixed or nomadic," Cabarios said. However, the traditional call and text services have reached their maturity level. Cabarios said NTC expects one more contender from San Miguel Corp., a telecom subsidiary that will enter the market and bring back the telco players to three. SMC has yet to inform the regulator about the commercial rollout of its cable model transmission system (CMTS) services. Its subsidiary, Express Telecommunication Company Inc., (Extelcom) earlier said it plans to roll out its CMTS services in 2010 but this has been delayed. Cabarios said mobile services will hit single-digit growth in terms of mobile subscribers this year until next year because telecom players have included the SIM (subscriber identity module) purchases in dongles which are used for broadband in the computation. Revenues are expected to go down as the industry has reached its peak. The country has about 4 million broadband subscribers, still low compared with an estimated 30 million internet users. The mobile subscriber base is more than 85 million.