Telco clearinghouse better left to industry to decide, says solon

The need for an interconnection clearinghouse for local telecommunications companies (telcos) may not be that compelling. Just the same, the viability of creating such as a clearinghouse would be better left to industry players to determine and decide for themselves, according to Rep. Joseph Santiago (NPC, Catanduanes).

"Offhand, it would seem there is no need for such a clearinghouse because we have only a handful of major operating telcos. In fact, about 75 percent of all local telcos are already interconnected," Santiago, former National Telecommunications Commission chief, said in a statement.

"In the United States, they have over 300 operating telcos, so one can just imagine their need. In fact, they do have a number of clearinghouses," Santiago added.

"In any case, the industry might decide later on to put up their own consortium that would operate such a clearinghouse. But that is really up to them," he said.

"In the past, the major industry players tried to put up two consortia and share the cost of two major capital-intensive projects. Sadly, both consortia collapsed partly due to bickering over the sharing of equity and costs," Santiago said.

Santiago was referring to the projects involving the launch of the country’s first international telecommunications and broadcast satellite and the construction of a second nationwide backbone.

"It is possible that industry players have matured by now so they might be prepared to consider new consortia. But then again, that’s really up to them," he said.

The country has 12 major operating telcos and 54 provincial telcos.

Last year, President Arroyo vetoed a controversial bill that would have granted a franchise to the Philippine Communications Clearinghouse Inc., owned by businessman Pacifico Marcelo, to operate a clearinghouse through which telcos would interconnect for a fee.

This interconnection of facilities requires investments by telcos. It is for this reason that in countries where there are many telcos, the players themselves had deemed it prudent to put up a clearinghouse that would invest in and operate such facilities for a fee, according to Santiago.