With the country’s major telcos undergoing disputes right now, it seems fairly recent when DITO Telecom began this forest fire. The first (widely publicized) issue was the complaint against local mainstays Globe and Smart for unfair play with regards to business practices. Now, Smart has added to its response by making a public statement addressed to the PCC or the Philippine Competition Commission.

For those out of the loop, the original issue was about calls not going through from DITO to the other telco providers. Apparently, “Out of 100 calls that DITO makes to reach out to one of these telcos, only 30 are able to get through. Seventy out of 100 calls are unable to interconnect. For the other one, it’s even worse, out of 100 calls, only 20 are able to interconnect.”

Globe and Smart did not waste time in firing back against the PCC complaint. Both companies took the same angle, which could be a coincidence or really the root cause of this all. In summary, these companies mentioned that DITO’s security measures are so loose that dubious persons are easily able to mask international calls as local ones when using their service. These fraudulent calls pass through DITO and access both networks’ services, losing them an abundant amount of revenue due to the obvious cost differences between local and international transactions. Globe even went as far as asking for PHP 600+M in reparations for these costly acts of negligence.

In its statement to the PCC today, Smart just reaffirmed its stand and confirmed its cooperation with the spirit of local competition within its playing field. To this end, it has continuously bolstered not only interconnectivity programs but also the state of its towers and the wide reach of its overall services. This is not only an improvement in subscriber count but also in the quality of service it provides, which can also be seen in its rapid addition of base stations all over the country.

As mentioned before to the PCC and the public, Smart is willing to comply with DITO’s request for capacity augmentation and increased interconnectivity support. However, DITO must “first address the serious and continuing deficiencies in its own network that have allowed criminals to abuse interconnection facilities.”

We have yet to hear a response from DITO or an additional statement from Globe on this topic. We’ll sit tight and update you on any developments.