Duterte may break up the monopoly on telco's

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

 

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.

 

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.