The (Bad) State of Philippine Telecoms Industry
Okay, I am furious. Fuming mad. Angry. Why? No, it has nothing to do with the current Philippine Senate Circus, or with the problems some local banks are facing with their investments with Lehman Brothers – since the Philippine Central Bank said local Banks are safe – but, no Sirs, nothing is safe these days.
So it’s like this. Okay, so you start a business, you go through the business plan process, and secure capitalization, process voluminous paper requirements with the SEC and other government agencies, you find an office space, buy furnitures, servers and laptops, and yeah, office phone with DSL internet connection.
So we’ve done all of them, got an office space in an office tower in Mandaluyong/Ortigas area, and one week before the official launch, applied a phone line with DSL with PLDT. Five weeks passed, still all we got were 3 volumes of yellow and white pages delivered 2 weeks ago – no phone line, couldn’t even print our business cards because we don’t have a telephone number yet, and no internet connection!
The Telecoms Industry in the Philippines
What does a Country need to be globally competitive for long term investments thus making more jobs available? There maybe a lot but probably among the top criteria are political stability, peace and order and, a good telecoms industry.
A Telecoms study results of two different research companies surprisingly have the following common illustration of the state of the telecommunications industry in the Philippines:
The country’s telecom industry is rather unusual – for a developing country – for two reasons. First, its regulation is extremely liberal and, second, in some respects there is a surfeit of telecom infrastructure. The regulatory regime is weak to the point of being ineffectual, while the fixed line infrastructure is severely under-utilised and a great deal of investment is going to waste.
Source: Research and Markets
… the crash programme of infrastructure expansion that the government introduced in the mid-1990s has resulted in an abundance of fixed lines. Many that are now installed are still not operational. The issue today is not so much that lines are unavailable but rather that those in place are under-utilised.
… The Philippines has long had one of the most deregulated telecom environments in the world.
… However, this liberalisation and lack of regulation has not translated into true competition. The weak regulatory regime has allowed the incumbent operator to maintain, and even strengthen, its dominant position.
Source: Asia Pacific Telecom Research Ltd
Now you’ll be surprised, aghast, flabbergasted – when there’s so much facilities available but are under-utilised, when for just a simple phone line connection in a notable building, with existing phone cabling and the previous tenant had a line already, its taking PLDT several weeks and still nothing happens. “You should have contacted customer support”, O yeah! We did, here are the details:
Week 0: Submitted all documents for business phone line processing
Week 1: No feedback. Called up 171, after half an hour of calling, the Customer Helldesk said there’s no information yet.
Week 2: Emailed Customer Support, no response. Called Customer Hotline – nobody knows. Note: A guy told us to give some TIP Amount so our line could be expedited – I said no.
Week 3: Called up some Managers at PLDT. We were told that a certain Michael is coordinating with a certain Jack so we better talk to a certain Albert so we would know what happened to our Service Order number. So we were given a number of a certain Jason to follow up with a certain Paul what happened to our application. We got tired calling all those people. Week ended with nothing happened.
Week 4: Surprise! Finally, we were told we have our Service Number. So the Service number will be used to create a Job Order which will be used to process our Phone number. We got excited, finally. Midweek, a guy came to deliver 3 volumes of yellow and white pages. What I’m gonna do with those anyway?
Week 5: Still nothing! Emailed Customer Suckport – no response. As usual the Customer HellDesk is clueless.
It is hard to operate a business without a phone line and an internet connection. There were already many lost opportunities – I can’t even start training my people since we need a good internet connection. Currently we are sharing an internet connection with the adjacent office, but we can’t do so much.
While its true that we have lots of Telecoms Operators in the country, the industry is still dominated by PLDT and its subsidiaries. Options are still limited. If only Bayantel have a good DSL service then perhaps I could have applied a phone line with them.
Update: (19-Sep-2008)
Finally we got the line, and the DSL service installed today. Its just so sad that it took some action from a higher PLDT office to give the contractor a push to install the line by today, or else…
Wouldn’t it be better if quick service is applied to all – Big time companies or small time businesses (like us)? Sigh…
Next Article: Globe Is Cheating Its Customers – so beware and check your bills!
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Basically we have a weak and struggling telecom industry in the Philippines. Some telecom companies appear good only in their commercial and marketing. Once you become their subscriber, you start scratching your head. I don’t want to name that company but I am a subscriber of a non-PLDT landline and has a problem with their patay-sindi DSL. My mom called that tel. company “Beer House” Telecom. Maganda lang sa umpisa, kinalaunan talo ka, parang kinakwartahan ka lang. Tama nga lang siguro silang tawaging “beer house” dahil maraming manghuhothot doon.
Colegialagirls last blog post..Philippine Reality Show sa Television, It’s the Real Thing
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I am sympathizing with your complains. This is not the first time I heard one and I believe this is one of the reasons why our economy is not growing.
Baka naman kulang ka sa padulas…ang lagay e ganun na lang…lol!
I may be joking but I believe this a hard joke. Karamihan kasi makaamoy lang ng pera nanginignig na!
Angel Cualas last blog post..A Good Effect of being a Patient Blogger
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Customer Helldesk?LOL…i like that name…:-D
Dyimzs last blog post..Blogging: An alternative for the unemployed?
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I hear yah B, to be honest I had a lot of bad experiences with several of our local telecom providers and PLDT being the worst. I remember the time that I applied late last year and still nothing so I ended up with Smartbro which Ironically is under the PLDT wing that got my line connected in 2 days. Sometimes I think its providing public awareness such as this and creating a consumer demand for improved service is required from all of us. But where to start is a question I’d like answered
Metz – Empty Streetss last blog post..Cookie Eggnog
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I cant wait for your scoop on the Globe Bills B. I have been a client of Globe for over 5 years now and I often feel that something is wrong with my invoices but can’t seem to figure or pin point out what. That would definitely spark a lot of interest from all post paid subscribers. But to think if they are doing something fishy with the postpaid people how much more to those on prepaid and cant even check on what they’ve been spending their money on.
Metz – Empty Streetss last blog post..Cookie Eggnog
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Hi B,
Just noticed that my comments arent appearing today on your site. It’s an electronic black hole huhuhu
hope you get this one. So mega haba na ang natype ko at two pa ito hahah. oh well crossing fingers
Metz – Empty Streetss last blog post..Cookie Eggnog
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I know these companies use Contractors to do the install services – but PLDT should ensure Contractors follow the standards. I’d like to see PLDT take some actions with the Contractor assigned on this one. Will keep you posted…
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wahahah delayed lang ng 2 minutes ang appearance ko dito today hahaha, oh well
Metz – Empty Streetss last blog post..Cookie Eggnog
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That is just so sucking!! Only thing I hate about PLDT is their DSL, sometimes it’s so slow.
Now, I can’t wait for your next article. Bait! Bait!
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Update:
Finally we got the line, and the DSL installed today. Its just so sad that it took some action from a higher PLDT office to give the contractor a push to install the line by today, or else…
Wouldn’t it be better if better and quick service is applied to all? Big time companies or small time businesses (like us)? Sigh…
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Hey B,
Good to know that your internet is finally up and running and just in time for the weekend
on that note happy weekend 
try and relax this time hehe and you still have to tell me what kind of blogger are you with the quiz blogger 
PS i’ll be at the world trade center this sunday as they have an exporters show it would be an interesting thing to visit 
Metz – Empty Streetss last blog post..Quiz: What Kind of Blogger are you
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[...] a subscriber of Globe mobile close to ten years. Globe was the best thing that happened to mobile telecoms in the Philippines, being one of the first companies (well they bought Islacom along the way) to introduce SMS or [...]
Hehehe! Results of having a oligopolistic telecoms industry. These telecom companies dont care about their customers. All they want is ther moolahs! Paging SEC! Its about time to look into the structure of the industry. Investigate the foreign dominance in this vital industry!
My golly! people are already suffering!
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[...] have written some articles in the past about my (bad) experiences with these telecoms service providers. Which will probably remain a “rant” since our government turned a deaf ear to the [...]
it’s so sad to know that we’re being cheated by these telecom companies. i’ve been a postpaid user for 1 yr now my 3g bundle that I subscribe with globelines really sucks.i dont remember being satisfied for a whole month cz every now and then you’ll notice the never ending advisory regarding system restoration blah blah..i do hope that one of this days we’ll go out in the open to demands our rights for a better and fair service.
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