RP's teledensity reached 9.18% as of June 1999

The country's telephone density has reached 9.18 percent as of June last year, slightly higher than the 9.08 percent registered in December 1998 even as only half of the cities and municipalities nationwide have access to telephone service.

Teledensity refers to the number of telephone lines available for every 100 persons.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) announced that from 6.64 million fixed and mobile phone lines installed in 1998, the figure rose by a mere 50,000 six months later.

The lines are, likewise, mostly concentrated in urban places despite an NTC requirement that players must put up at least one telephone line in their service areas.

According to the NTC, none of the local exchange carriers (LECs) was able to completely heed their mandate.

The NTC said that based on their June 1999 review, Bayan Telecommunications Inc. (BayanTel) had served 93.28 percent of its assignment, Digital Telecommunications Phils. Inc. ((Digitel) had 93.26 percent; Isla Communications Co. (Islacom) had 49.37 percent; Philippine Telephone and Telegraph Corp. (PT&T) had 80.16 percent; Globe Telecom had 80 percent; Pilipino Telephone Corp. (Piltel) had 77.78 percent; Smart Communications Inc., 42.05 percent; and Philcom Corp., had 20.73 percent.

But despite the availability of telephone lines, there were only 2.7 million landline customers as of June 1999 or 200,000 more than the 1998 subscriber base.

Telecom firms such as the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), Globe and BayanTel blamed the show uptake the economic crisis that hit the country in 1998.

Aside from a high disconnection rate, low buying power coupled with high installation and monthly charges also discouraged customers from applying for the service, they said.

But while LECs are complaining of lack of customers, the cellular mobile telephone system (CMTS) operators are flourishing.

From 1.34 million customers in June 1998, mobile phone subscribers went up to 1.73 million a year after, representing a 29.03 percent increase.

The number is expected to further jump with the growing popularity of prepaid cellular phone cards that allow users to have control over their accounts.

Meanwhile, the NTC said that Piltel, Islacom, PT&T and Philcom Corp. have still failed to meet their landline target as of June last year. Their deadline was in the first quarter of 1998.

NTC said that Piltel only had 91.64 percent accomplishment; Islacom had 74.21 percent; PT&T had 51.81 percent and Philcom had 22.04 percent.