CaTV sector welcomes the era of convergence

Jose Lobregat, vice chairman of the Philippine Cable Television Association (PCTA), gives an update of how the industry is faring in this era of convergence in this Q&A with the Telecoms Section:

STAR: How is the Philippine cable TV industry at present?

Lobregat: The cable industry is going through changes as it always has and no doubt you’ve heard about the plant merger and the tie-up between Home Cable and Sky Cable. Right now, it’s the bigger companies, but we expect that the smaller and medium-scale independent operators will see that it is better to have a wider coverage and to be able to provide multiple services, instead of just providing basic cable TV. In the cable market, the players are now coming up with ways to have additional services to offer for additional fees.

STAR: What issues confront the industry now and how are its leaders addressing them?

Lobregat: Well, the same issues on how to go about convergence and how to deal with competition. As you know, competition in the cable industry is allowed and, in fact, encouraged. In the past, there were many cases where competing cable systems operating in the same area would start sabotaging each other’s equipment. But this was in the past, no one does it anymore. There is now respect for each other. It’s a dynamic industry and there are always changes. When we are confronting different issues, we always consider the attitude of the cable operators. Sometimes when we see that the confrontation would be detrimental, depending on the issue at hand, we usually delay or avoid it, or make sure that we make everything clear first. We are very careful in handling these things.

STAR: How is the industry adopting to this era of convergence?

Lobregat: The industry welcomes it. Unfortunately, a lot of the cable systems and cable plants put up in the Philippines are capable of delivering only cable TV, and most of the plants are not adaptable for convergence. But a number of operators have upgraded their plants and are, in fact, already offering what we call value-added service. There are still many legislative issues to be tackled here. But I think it is going to be an undisputed fact in the near future that the cable TV network will be able to deliver a lot of other services — not just Internet but different kinds of premium TV, and whatever the future might bring. However, a lot of these things depend on what is the content of the program or service. I guess that’s where the battle in the future would be — who’s got the best content.

STAR: How are the pieces of legislation the industry has long been pushing for?

Lobregat: Unfortunately in the Philippines, we have a Congress that is only for three years — and now we have to start all over again with the new Congress and the new leadership after the election. As usual we are going to go for it, and we are optimistic that we can get it. We think we’ve learned a lot of lessons from our past efforts to keep us going and be successful this time.