The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) may auction off Fifth Generation (5G) frequencies in the future, after telecommunications giants PLDT and Globe Telecom announced their readiness to adopt the technology.
According to Acting Information Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr., the government will work on providing the frequencies for 5G’s commercial rollout and distributing them to make it equitable.
“These frequencies are natural resources owned by the people,” Rio told reporters last Friday.
This is reason the department may opt to hold a bidding process, where “the highest bidder will get more bandwidth than the second and third,” he said.
Rio’s remarks came days after PLDT announced the establishment of its 5G Technolab facility that will focus on the research and development, standardization, and testing of 5G wireless broadband technologies and services; and after Globe unveiled its plan to make 5G commercially available by the second quarter of next year.
PLDT and Globe’s recent pronouncements showed they are “doing their best to improve their services,” the acting DICT chief said.
“5G is going to be the next generation of services, which we do not experience with 4G. Its download speed is really fast,” he added.
While the government welcomes the two major telecom firms’ pronouncements, they might need to wait for the release of the standard frequency for 5G from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Rio said.
“If there’s no standard, you might need to produce handsets for your system. That would be expensive. If there is a standard frequency for 5G…then manufacturers can mass-produce handsets,” he explained in Filipino.
Despite that 5G-compatible devices are not yet available, Rio is optimistic the country can use 5G.
“Just like [with]4G, before there were only few [handsets available], but now the industry [is seeing its increased use]among Filipinos,” he said.
Source: http://www.manilatimes.net/5g-frequencies-may-be-bid-out-dict/407133/
