PLDT loses Dream satellite, looks into IPTV
PLDT eyes Internet-based broadcast media venture
HONG KONG-AFTER FAILING TO acquire a satellite-based pay TV company, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. is now planning to venture into an Internet-based broadcast media, known as IPTV (Internet Protocol Television).
PLDT chair Manuel V. Pangilinan confirmed that talks with Philippine Multi-Media System Inc., operator of Dream Satellite TV, had bogged down.
This, he said, was the reason behind the shelving of the plan to go into direct-to-home TV (DTH) business with American content provider Echostar.
IPTV uses Internet or broadband connection to broadcast programs and content, while DTH uses either satellite or cable to give subscribers access to popular programs.
The country’s largest telecom company is now looking at a business model similar to what Li Ka-shing’s son, Richard Li, had done to Hong Kong-based telephone firm PCCW, Pangilinan noted.
PCCW, formerly Hong Kong Telecom, ventured into IPTV a few years ago.
According to Pangilinan, PCCW’s IPTV now has more than half-a-million subscribers.
PCCW owns a Hong Kong fiber-optic network and provides Internet services. It is now the city’s dominant carrier operating 3.5 million phone lines.
IPTV will allow PLDT to broadcast content through high-speed Internet or broadband and the same time give subscribers access to the web and cheap calls through the Internet, called Voice over IP.
“As talks with Dream and Bayantel are not proceeding, we have to reassess our approach on the video business,” he said. “The question is, does it make sense to go into DTH right now when IPTV is proving to be more versatile and less expensive?”
PLDT, he said, would evaluate whether it would be wiser to adopt a new technology like IPTV as what PCCW had done or stick with the existing system.
For now, PLDT said it would let the dust settle on its failed acquisition plan.
“What is clear is that we are seeing a resurgence of the fixed-line business with all these new fixed-line based technologies,” said the chair of PLDT.
Eventually, he said PLDT would use its strong wireless telephone network to provide similar services to the rural areas. IPTV has limitations in expanding in remote areas, which are more accessible to satellite signals.
IPTV can fulfill the longstanding plan of Pangilinan to go into broadcast media, which he said, was essential in his long-term vision for PLDT to become a fully-integrated telecom company.
inQ7 article by Clarissa S. Batino