The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has asked Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) to update it on its ongoing divestment of radio frequencies currently held by its subsidiary Connectivity Unlimited Resources Enterprise (CURE, trading as Red Mobile), and confirm that it will return them by July 2012. PLDT has just three months to complete the phased migration of Red Mobile customers to sister firm Smart Communications’ network, after which it must relinquish CURE’s 3G frequencies as part of the terms and conditions of PLDT’s takeover of fellow Filipino operator Digital Telecommunication Philippines Inc (Digitel) last October.
Once the frequencies are returned, the regulator intends to launch an auction to sell them off again. PLDT and its subsidiaries are prohibited from participating in the bidding process, although interest is expected from Globe Telecom, San Miguel Group and Bell Telecommunications Inc (BellTel) along with other telecom players such as Bayan Telecommunications and Multi-Media Telephony Inc.