The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is opposing the plan of the Department of Finance to bid out the telecommunication frequencies to a potential killer of the Smart-Globe duopoly.
A bidding of the 3G, 4G, and 5G frequencies could generate $1 billion to $2 billion from a bidding but DICT acting Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr. said that this would be unfair and dampen interest among potential third telco players.
“It is so anticompetitive if we auction the frequencies,? Rio said in a report by the Inquirer.
Rio noted that Smart and Globe did not obtained their frequencies in an auction.
Rio proposed that the spectrum biddings be made only after the third player has been chosen.
President Rodrgio Duterte met with Rio last Friday during a break in the National ICT Summit in Davao City.
Duterte had previously frowned on compensating Smart and Gobe for their idle frequencies that he insisted were given to them by the government without any compensation.
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