The foreign and local oligarchs controlling the virtual telecom monopoly in the country — made up of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Globe Telecom — probably would have sleepless nights after President Duterte warned them the other day that if they don’t improve their services, they’ll bring in competitors from China. If that happens, it will be devastating for PLDT (and its cell phone unit, Smart) and Globe. It would result in the end of its virtual monopoly, which would be a boon to cell phone and internet users, as well as for the economy in a country that remains the laggard in the region in terms of its telecom efficiency and infrastructure. The world’s biggest telecom firm now, after overtaking the American Verizon last year, is China Mobile Ltd., while the tenth largest is China Telecom. These could undoubtedly bring a lot of resources into the Philippines to dismantle the local monopoly. And it would be so easy for Duterte to get these companies into the country. Why? Because both are state firms, their biggest stockholder being the government itself of the People’s Republic of China. China would certainly jump on Duterte’s offer, in order to get closer to the country that has been antagonistic to it since it had been the US surrogate under past administrations, especially with regard to the South China dispute. Being state firms, the Chinese leadership would simply order either of the state firms to enter the country’s telecom industry one day, and the next day its executive and technicians will be here. Duterte could break up the telecom monopoly - The Manila Times Online
again just an attempt to scare the Yanks, but the Chinese would give both hands to get in here, not for the monetary value and one thing about the chinese, they will invest heavily and for the long term, but with lots of strings attached, (DU30) might be bringing a knife to a gun fight
Great idea giving the one country actively invading Philippine sovereign territory direct access to all Philippine communications, voice and data.
Are you by any chance talking about the uninhabited islands that are "soverign" territory of Vietnam and Indonesia, Malaysia, probably others also? They also claim them and the Philippines has not won any court cases against them, only China.
Maybe good, maybe bad as Chinese businesses invest lots of money in many noncommunist economies. China Investment in U.S. Economy Set for Record, But Political Concerns Grow
Seems to me that most of the big business here is already run by Chinese-Filipinos so I'm sure a few telco towers and some infrastructure from them wouldn't make much difference! Slightly off topic but pldt are at the moment laying underground fiber optic cables throughout Valencia. They have some pretty high tech machines with GPS to do the underground boring.
The court would not have ruled in favor of the Philippines if the Philippines didn't show proof it was theirs. Yes there are other areas of the South China Sea with valid claims of sovereign territory over China's really long stretch. They are not all claiming the entirety of what China is.
An interesting video that does a pretty good job of explaining why it is so hard to sort out the territorial waters the South China Sea.
The Telstra/San Miguel deal sounded like they got a bunch of bandwidth, sold it to Globe/PLDT and then blew town with a wad of cash. I wonder if they really planned to get into the communication business here in earnest or just make a few bucks.
