Dito Telecommunity should make sure it is able to roll out its services outside of the National Capital Region (NCR) and to “unserved” and “underserved” areas in the country.
(Senate of the Philippines / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
Sen. Grace Poe, chair of the Senate Committee on Public Services, issued the challenge after noting that the country’s third telecommunication company (Telco) is only capable of delivering its promises of better and affordable communication services mainly in the NCR instead of barangays in remote communities that have difficulty accessing the Internet.
“By strategically fulfilling its commitment to meet the said number of barangays mostly in the NCR area where it’s the easiest way to go about it, Dito is literally giving us the bare minimum of what it committed to do,” explained Poe.
Poe’s committee earlier deferred Dito’s application for renewal of its franchise saying it will continue to do so until it is able to deliver at least 27mbps speed for Internet connection on its first year.
She also said Dito should also be able to assure the government that it can cover 37 percent of the country’s population.
“So after they show that they are able to honor their commitments and provide for all of those, then that will be a basis for us to determine if they’re really eligible for another 25 years,” she said.
“Dito will actually do a test run and said they were able to cover thousands of barangays, so we would actually want to go to one of those barangays and see if there’s been a marked improvement in their connection,” said Poe.
“We can always see the numbers, but unless you’re actually the end user and experience how it performs, you can’t really vouch for it,” she added.
Apart from Dito’s Internet services, other senators have also expressed concerns on Dito’s partnership with China Telecoms.