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After a six-month delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dito Telecommunity, the company chosen by the government to compete with PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom, recently announced that it would be operational in March 2021.
Dito is the government’s response to decades-long complaints about poor and inadequate services from PLDT and Globe. It is planned to offer the two telecommunications companies the competition that would force them to improve their services.
The ploy apparently worked because shortly after Dito took over the franchise of a dying telecommunications company to allow it to operate in the Philippines, PLDT and Globe Telecom stepped up their efforts to upgrade their infrastructure and improve internet connectivity.
They seem to want to snag as many subscribers as possible, especially heavy users of the lucrative broadband service, so that when Dito goes live, it’ll just pick up the crumbs, so to speak.
Although Dito’s strategic partner China Telecom is reputed to have the facilities and technical expertise for 5G (the most advanced system for cellular communications), there is no guarantee that the technology will operate efficiently in the country and that it will be affordable.
Note that Dito is not involved in missionary activity. It is investing billions of pesos with the expectation that its shareholders will obtain a fair return on their investments as soon as possible.
So your services should not only be better than PLDT and Globe, but they should also be priced to attract such a volume of subscribers that it would make your business profitable.
Dito would be entering the market with a serious perception or image problem derived from his association with China Telecom, a company owned by the Chinese government.
In a mobile phone survey conducted by Social Weather Stations from July 3-6, Filipinos’ confidence in China went from “bad” to “bad” with a net confidence rating of -36. This represents a 9 point drop from its -27 net confidence rating in December 2019.
This strong expression of mistrust can be attributed to the continued illegal occupation by China and the recovery of islands within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines.
What is more telling is that the adverse sentiment persists despite President Duterte’s repeated public praise of China for its alleged generosity in providing economic and other assistance to the Philippines.
Last week, various sectors let out a howl at the action of the Armed Forces of the Philippines allowing the construction of Dito cell towers in selected military camps.
They expressed concern about the facilities they give China, through China Telecoms, eyes and ears on confidential military information. This arrest for espionage is not without foundation.
China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 states that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law.”
Then there is the 2014 Anti-Espionage Law, which establishes that “when the State security body investigates and understands this espionage situation and collects relevant evidence, the relevant organizations and individuals must provide it truthfully and may not refuse.”
Rightly or wrongly, trust and privacy issues would be at the back of the minds of Filipinos who might be interested in subscribing to Dito’s services.
What is the guarantee that China Telecom, through its staff who will be part of Dito’s operations, will keep confidential information about its subscribers confidential and will not find its way to China’s intelligence data bank?
Would subscribing to Dito’s services, and in the process making China Telecom profitable, constitute an indirect show of support for China despite its aggressive actions against the Philippines?
Dito needs to take these things into account when starting your subscriber solicitation campaign. The Filipinos’ sense of nationalism vis-à-vis China is not something to despise or ignore. INQ
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