Telecommunications in the Philippines are well-developed due to the presence of modern infrastructure facilities. The industry was deregulated in 1995 when President Fidel Ramos signed Republic Act No. 7925. This law opened the sector to more private players and improved the provision of telecom services are better and fairer rates, leading to the creation of many telecommunication service providers for mobile, fixed-line, Internet and other services.
China Telecommunications Corporation (中国电信集团有限公司), known as its trading name China Telecom, is a Chinese state-owned telecommunication company. It is the largest fixed-line service and the third largest mobile telecommunication provider in China.
Globe Telecom, Inc., commonly shortened as Globe, is a major provider of telecommunications services in the Philippines. The company operates the largest mobile network in the Philippines and one of the largest fixed-line and broadband networks. As of November 2023, Globe has 54.7 million subscribers, making it the second largest network in terms of subscriber base.
Smart Communications Inc., commonly referred to as Smart, is a wholly owned wireless communications and digital services subsidiary of PLDT Inc., a telecommunications and digital services provider based in the Philippines. As of November 2023, it is currently the largest mobile network with 55.2 million subscribers.
ABS-CBN was a Philippine commercial broadcast network that served as the flagship property of the ABS-CBN Corporation, a company under the Lopez Holdings Corporation. The network was headquartered at the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center in Quezon City, that had additional offices and production facilities in 25 major cities including Baguio, Naga, Bacolod, Iloilo, Cebu, Davao, and Bulacan, where ABS-CBN's production and post-production facility in Horizon IT Park is located. ABS-CBN was colloquially referred to as the Kapamilya Network; its brand was originally introduced in 1999 and was officially introduced in 2003 during the celebration of its 50th anniversary, and was used until it was forced by the National Telecommunications Commission to cease and desist from free-to-air broadcasting due to the lack of congressional franchise. ABS-CBN is the largest media company in the Philippines and is the oldest television broadcaster in Southeast Asia. The network is metonymically called as "Ignacia" due to the location of its headquarters ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center along Mother Ignacia Street in Quezon City.
The National Telecommunications Commission is the telecommunications regulator of the Philippines.
Internet in the Philippines first became available on March 29, 1994, 10:18 a.m., with the Philippine Network Foundation (PHNet) connecting the country and its people to Sprint in the United States via a 64 kbit/s link. As of February 2023, there are 85.16 million internet users in the country, where internet penetration stood at 73.1% of the total population.
Digital terrestrial television in the Philippines began in 2015 with the implementation of ISDB-T, currently coexisting with analog television that operates on the NTSC standard after the set analog switch-off (ASO) deadline encountered multiple postponements.
Dream Satellite TV was the first all-digital Direct-To-Home (DTH) television broadcasting service via satellite in the Philippines. Broadcasting from the Dream Broadcast Center located at the Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga. Content is received from program providers, compressed and broadcast via Koreasat 5 in DVB-S and NTSC color format exclusively to its subscribers using the Integrated Receiver-Decoder and the Conax/Nagravision 3 Encryption System.
G-Sat is a subscription-based direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television service commercially available in the Philippines. G-Sat is owned by Global Satellite Technology Services (GSTS), registered in the Philippines with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). G-Sat also carried pay TV channels from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, which TV shows and movies subtitled in Cantonese and Mandarin.
Sky Cable Corporation, doing business as Sky, is a Filipino telecommunications company based in Diliman, Quezon City. A subsidiary of the media conglomerate ABS-CBN Corporation, the company offers broadband, cable and satellite television services under the Sky Cable and Sky Direct brands. The company was founded on June 6, 1990 by Benpres Holdings Corporation as Central CATV, Inc.
ABS-CBN Convergence, Inc. is the communications subsidiary of the Philippine media conglomerate ABS-CBN Corporation. It operates a wireless mobile phone service ABS-CBN Mobile, which was launched on November 16, 2013, and digital terrestrial television service ABS-CBN TV Plus, launched on February 11, 2015.
ABS-CBN Mobile was a cellular telephony service provider in the Philippines owned and operated by ABS-CBN Convergence, a subsidiary of ABS-CBN. ABS-CBNmobile formerly uses the network infrastructures of Globe Telecom under a network-sharing agreement which allows ABS-CBN and Globe to share frequencies, switches, servers, and transmitters. ABS-CBNmobile formerly offers prepaid and postpaid SMS, voice, data, wireless landline connection, and access to premium and exclusive contents of iWant TV.
A bidding was held in November 2018 to determine the prospective third major telecommunications service provider in the Philippines which is meant by the Philippine government to compete with the existing duopoly of PLDT, Inc.–Smart Communications and Globe Telecom.
DITO Telecommunity Corporation, formerly known as Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company, Inc. or Mislatel is a telecommunications company in the Philippines which is also engaged in the business of multimedia and information technology. It is a consortium of DITO CME Holdings Corporation, a subsidiary of the Udenna Corporation which is owned by Davao businessman Dennis Uy, and China Telecommunications Corporation, a state-owned enterprise of the government of mainland China and a parent company of China Telecom.
Now Telecom Company, Inc. is a telecommunications firm based in the Philippines. The company provides broadband and fiber-optic communication services to upper-class residential and commercial areas in Metro Manila under the Now Fiber Air brand. The firm, along with Now Corporation and News and Entertainment Network Corporation (NEWSNET), formed the unified Now Network service.
Eastern Telecommunications Philippines, Inc. (ETPI), doing business as Eastern Communications, is the first telecommunications company in the Philippines under Vega Telecom. Founded in 1878 during the final years of the Spanish colonial era, it was the first company to provide telegraphic services.
Streamtech Systems Technologies, Inc. is a Philippine telecommunications company. Founded by Manuel Paolo A. Villar, it offers communication services such as fiber to the home, internet and cable television bundles and internet for small businesses and large enterprises.
The LCS Group of Companies, also known as LCS Holdings Inc., is a Philippine conglomerate. The company was founded in 2016 by Filipino politician Luis Crisologo Singson who serves as its chairman.
Gamaliel Asis Cordoba is a Filipino lawyer who was the longest-serving Commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) from 2009 until 2022. He is currently the Chairperson of the Commission on Audit (COA) replacing former Solicitor General Jose Calida. His appointment was confirmed by the Commission on Appointments (CA) on November 29, 2022.
(2021)
