The Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company (Mislatel), the Philippines’ new ‘third telco’, has confirmed plans to start network rollout in July. In a regulatory filing submitted today (14 June), consortium member Chelsea Logistics and Infrastructure Holdings Corp noted: ‘The Mislatel consortium, composed of Udenna Corporation, Chelsea Logistics and Infrastructure Holdings Corp, and China Telecommunications Corporation, completed on 13 June the signing of the Share-Purchase Agreement (SPA) that will bring closer to fruition the operation of the country’s third telco player.’ In the wake of the filing, Mislatel spokesperson Adel Tamano told GMA News: ‘[We will start] operations in the sense that we are aiming to get the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) by July. Once we get that, our network rollout will begin … We’re really hoping to get everything fixed by July. The signing of the agreements is a vivid manifestation of the fulfilment of our goal to provide Filipinos with faster and reliable internet connection. We are grateful for the support and cooperation shown by the approving bodies.’
The New Major Player (NMP) believes its deployment schedule is both ambitious and designed to protect national security. It plans to install some 10,000 cell sites across the country in the next seven years, and previously the NMP’s Adel Tamano has said: ‘We already have quite a number of memorandums of agreement and understanding with our partners who will help us in our role … We admit that we cannot do this without help from our partners, including the LGUs [local government units] and national government; with the proper policies, we can be able to have a good rollout and the benefit would be faster, better and cheaper internet and telecom services.’