The news that Australia’s Telstra and our own San Miguel Corporation (SMC) are putting up a third telco in the Philippine next year has caught the attention of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT).
Manuel V. Pangilinan, PLDT’s chairman, said during the company’s third quarter financial announcement that they will be “ready for them”. He adds that Telstra-SMC “will be a problem for all networks”.
| Manuel V. Pangilinan (second from left) speaks during PLDT’s press briefing. |
Meanwhile, Telstra’s Andy Penn remarked last week that the company may spend as much as $1 Billion for the joint venture with SMC.
Ramon S. Ang of SMC also promised that the new telco will start operation next year, 2016. Its focus will be on reliable mobile broadband services.
There has been dissatisfaction (to say the least, read the harsh comments here) among mobile broadband users lately as a result of Smart’s new SurfMax offer which limits a user’s data to just 800MB per day. This is the same as Globe’s data cap.
If PLDT will indeed be ready for Telstra, they should fix Smart’s mobile broadband services first.
