NTC grants license to Easycall
Posted on August 30th, 2009
The Easycall Communications Philippines, Inc. (ECPI) has been granted the license to install, operate and maintain a nationwide data communication network by the National Telecommunication Commission (NTC). The license however, comes with a condition.
ECPI should, within eight months from the issuance of the provisional license, infuse an additional P10 million in paid-up capital and not through a loan, in order to make the communication network viable. Easycall is eyeing schools and hospitals to drive up revenues for its plan to put up a nationwide data communications network.
ECPI, in its submission of proposal to the NTC, said its service includes offering the sale of bandwidth to primary and secondary medical hospitals as well as to education institutions. Its packages offered include an Internet service with a speed of 512 kilobytes per second at $240 per month; up to one megabyte per second (Mbps) at $500; and up to two Mbps at $800 monthly.
It has already identified schools nationwide as prospective clients, where it intends to offer a five-year period contract to the 1,898 schools. It says its revenue is seen to reach P4.82 million on the fifth year of operations.
Aside from schools, ECPI has also identified 253 hospitals it wants to tap as clients, where the company is expecting almost P650,000 revenues. Its total projected revenues for the five-year period is estimated to reach P5.47 million.
“This undertaking will essentially provide service connectivity. Critical to this service is the transfer of medical records. The speed by which these records are shared by medical professionals is crucial to patients as end-users of the said service offering,†ECPI said.
ECPI said the permit is consistent with the government’s policy of ensuring viable infrastructure and services in information and communications technology accessible to all. “This proposed nationwide data communications network will be geared towards servicing areas in the country which are either unserved or underserved,†it added.
