Globe: Bayantel Rehab will Benefit Consumers, Telco Industry

In a recent joint comment submitted to the Court of Appeals, Globe Telecom said that the rehabilitation of Bayan Communications (Bayantel) will augur well for consumers to enjoy wider choices as well as better product offerings, and ultimately bring about a positive impact to the local telco industry.

According to the document, both companies reiterated that “the successful rehabilitation of a public utility is a matter of high state concern. For, it would open up the consumer market to more choices, promote greater competition, and foster better products and services.”

Likewise, this will result “in a free market where rapidly-evolving technologies have greatly facilitated communications and access to information, resulting in massive public enlightenment…”

Moreover, the debt-to-equity conversion transaction between Globe and Bayantel will precisely enable the latter’s continued viability as a telecommunications provider, allowing it to “exit rehabilitation and enhance its current infrastructure and network, build more cell sites and related facilities (as well as) enrich more people’s lives through the wonders of telecommunication.” Particularly, it will allow Bayantel “to continuously provide better and technologically-advanced services at affordable rates.”

As their joint application has run on for more than a year already, both parties stated that the P 5-billion rehabilitation effort is starting to adversely affect “more than a thousand employees whose jobs are in peril and whose families’ future are in dark doubt.”

For its part, Globe in the comment said that “(it) has stamped its class in the market by delivering one innovative product after another, to the delight of its customers. It is this same dynamism that has given (it) a clear-eyed view in the immense potential of a revitalized Bayantel, (that) in the not-too distant future, duplicate for its own customers the same transforming and enriching experience that (customers of Globe Telecom) have come to know.”

Globe and Bayantel filed the said petition in October 2013, which so far has been undecided for the last 15 months.