Oz telco -Telstra in the Philippines

A lot of the comments seem to coming from Aussies who have no idea that San Miguel is more than just a beer company. San Miguel is part of the oligarchy and have their hands in far more than just the alcohol cookie jar. But I have to agree with you, if I had billions to spend it certainly wouldn't be spent in the Philippines where the judicial system/government is beyond corrupt, contracts are about as useful as toilet paper and I couldn't own a majority share/say in a business I invested in.

 

The Philippines' biggest phone and internet provider, PLDT, is preparing to take Telstra and its would-be partner San Miguel to court in an effort to strip the companies of their most valuable spectrum assets.

Telstra is in the final stages of negotiating a multibillion-dollar joint venture with San Miguel to build a new mobile phone network in the Philippines, a relatively risky move in one of Asia's most hotly contested mobile markets. San Miguel president Ramon Ang wants the service to kick off from the first quarter of 2016.

Both Globe and PLDT have asked the regulator to reassign part of SM's 7000MHz holding in a more equitable way.

Raymond Tong, Goldman Sachs
Telstra's biggest advantage is San Miguel's 90 per cent holding of 700MHz spectrum across the country. Spectrum is the electronic airspace that all broadcast technologies rely on and the 700MHz frequency band is the best at penetrating buildings and travelling long distances.

But both of Telstra's would-be rivals, Globe Telecom and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), are demanding the local regulator force San Miguel to share its spectrum – which analysts warn would greatly decrease the potential advantages and profitability of the new ventures.

PLDT head of Regulatory Affairs Ray Espinosa told Fairfax Media in an exclusive interview the company would begin lobbying Philippines President Benigno Aquino III directly this month. He added that its external legal team was preparing to launch legal action against the regulators, San Miguel and any of its partners unless the spectrum was shared.

"The 700MHz as it is assigned today has been issued with the assumption that it will be used for broadcast purposes only [and] the companies that hold it cannot legally use it for mobile communications purposes," he said. "We are prepared to take vigorous action judicially if that's necessary for us to get our fair share of the frequency ... and that could mean bringing the case before our judicial courts. That would be against the regulators and the holders of the frequency.

"We will also bring it to the attention of the office of the President to emphasise how important this is ... before the end of the year if not the early part of January."



Read more: Telstra's Philippine venture threatened by legal action, presidential lobbying
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lol Like a little child that sees the neighbor's kid playing with a toy they have never seen before. Run off and tell mommy that they aren't sharing. I hope they don't let Globe and PLDT get their grubby little hands on the frequency. Everything they touch turns to sh*t and I'm certain they would do everything they could to overload the bandwidth to make Telstra's service worse.

And if Globe/PLDT were smart they would avoid the 700MHz frequency and go with the 2.6GHz for LTE. The money is in the bigger cities where the 2.6GHz would be superior (shorter distance but allows for a lot more bandwidth). All they are trying to do is stop Telstra from entering the market by forcing them to share the 700MHz. Though providing internet over wireless to a large number of people is idiotic on Telstra's part. If they follow the same route that Globe and PLDT have went their service will be just as crap as what is already available here in short order. This country desperately needs wired internet infrastructure.

 

Telstra has confirmed that talks with beer giant San Miguel to build a new mobile network in The Philippines have ended in failure after months of negotiations.

Telstra had planned to pump billions of dollars into a new joint venture that would've taken on local incumbents Globe Telecom and PLDT.

Many shareholders had expressed serious doubts about the high risks involved in the deal and Telstra's share price has tumbled since talks were first confirmed in August 2015.




Read more: Telstra pulls out of Philippines venture

 

It seems common sense has prevailed. Investing and doing business in the Philippines is too risky.

 

Let me try translating:

"The Philippines is far too corrupt and too many people wanted hand outs. Paying out bribes to every congressman, city mayor and barangay captain that we would have had to deal with would have doubled our expected budget."

"We still want to expand out business further into Asia, but not with those backwards and extremely-corrupt monkeys."

"We tried being honest and transparent about our business plan in the Philippines.....then the competition (Globe and PLDT) took that information and then bribed politicians to make sure that we could never get the permits we needed and filed ridiculous lawsuits against us for trying to nudge in on their monopoly."

The Philippines is its own worst enemy. Cut off their nose to spite their face.