MANILA, The Philippines-Digital Telecommunications (Digitel), owned by the Gokongwei conglomerate, has expressed confidence that an interconnection agreement will be reached within this quarter with Globe Telecom, owned by the Ayala group of companies.
Globe Telecom President Gerardo Ablaza also confirmed that the two companies are reaching the final stages as far as the first part of the interconnection agreement is concerned, which is voice interconnect, while they are just starting with the second phase covering text messaging.
However, until an interconnection agreement is reached, Digitel cellular subscribers will not be able to call either Globe or Smart mobile-phone users or send short messaging service (SMS) messages to them.
Without interconnection between Digitel’s and Globe’s cellular services, it is possible for the former to use the landline network of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) to terminate calls to Globe’s network.
Philippine newcomer Digitel has about 5,000 cellular subscribers to date, according to company officials, around 2,000 of which are Digitel employees and the rest are employees of parent company JG Summit and other subsidiaries.
