'-..
g end if us,
& House leader on wednesday
f W aclimowledged some measure
6e*'ffi of uncertainty on the opera-
& &tions of Dito Telecommunity
- the third major telco in the countr;r
- amid a reported move by the United
States (US) government to block an
undersea data cable that would link Los
Algeles to Hong Kong, with the Philip-
pines as one ofits landing sLations.
'Surely we will be at the losing
end as well if it doesn:t push through,"
House Information and Communica-
tionsTbchnologrCommittee chairman,
Tarlac 2nd district Rep. VictorYap said.
He is referring lo the Facebook and
Google-backed subsea cable project
from Paci{ic Light Cable Network
(PLCN).
Still without a single cell site, Dito
witl be relying heavily on the inftastruc-
tules of the PLCN to jumpstart its entry
as the country's newest telco.
The 12,800-kilor4ete4 cmss-Pacific
Ocean cable is expected to provide
Dito the needed start-up requirement,
especially since the project is expected
to greatly enhance Internet speed in the
US and China.
However, this will face a major
:..'',|
data cable
hurdle if the US Department of Justice
decides to pull the plug on the project
over issues of national security.
The tension over the undersea cable
is said to be connected to the trade
war between Washington and Beijing,
with iheir countries imposing tari{fs on
each other since July 2018.'Hong Kong
is a Special Administrative Region of
China.
"Those are investments made byUS
companies. As to how it will come out, I
dorft krow" Yap said of the pfoject.
"Part of it is a bl?ass that traverses
terrestrial from La Union to Aurora
(Baler) . And they made a 25-year free-
bie to the Philiilpine government via
BCDA, which I estimate at the value
of billions of pesos worth of free band-
width," the Tarlac solon said.
China Tblecom owns 40 percent of
Dito Telecommunity, formerly known
as Mislatel.
Dito is expected to roll out its ser-
vices in the second quarter of 2020 and
will aim to rival the duopoly of Smart
and Clobe, which have control over
several international gateways (un-
dersea cables) and almost 17,000 local
cell sites. the LA-Hong Kong subsea
'rSurely it (Dito) can offer competi- DICT is now closely
tionforcheaper data. That's whywe are
development.
\ PAc+r-<r
batting for the open access bill passed
with genuine provisions in the Senate,"
Yap added.
At any rate, he noted that PLCN
wasrft the lone subsea cable data sup-
plier to the country.
Deputy Majority Leader Camiguin
lone district Rep. Xavier Jesus Romual-
do said the Philippine government can
help guarantee the success o{ the third
telco by establishing "redundancies" in
the syst6m.
"The government should ensure
that, with regard to connectivity and
infrastructure, both the public and
private sectors have redundancies in
place to ensure that seidce is always
availdble to the public and consumers,"
he said.
"So that even if the PLCN or other
similar projects do not pan out, the
government and telecommunications
companies will still be able to provide
the services they commit to deliver."
'added Romualdo, I .
It was only last April when
partment of Information and
munications Technolory (DI
dersecretary Eliseo Riq