MANILA (UPDATE) - Third telco DITO Telecommunity passed its first-year commitment technical audit after registering a minimum broadband speed of 507.5 Mbps for its 5G service, and 85.9 Mbps minimum speed for its 4G service, the National Telecommunications Commission said Monday.

Mobile internet speeds reached 102.4 Mbps for 4G and 769.1 Mbps for 5G near base stations. At the middle point, 4G speed was recorded at 91.2 Mbps while 5G was at 437.1 Mbps, NTC said.

Tests conducted far from the base station resulted in 64.4 Mbps for 4G and 316.5 Mbps for 5G, the NTC said. Random sampling was used to choose 12 percent among the existing 1,602 DITO cell sites for field testing, it said.

"It should be noted that there are still no subscribers in the network at this time," NTC said.

The third telco is scheduled to launch commercially in March this year.

DITO earlier committed "near-Singapore" internet speed of at least 27 Mbps.

The new telco also covered 37.5 percent of the country's population, reaching 8,860 barangays, the NTC said in a statement, citing data from RG Manabat & Co.

DITO's initial commitment is to cover 37 percent of the population.

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DITO is owned by Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy and China Telecom.

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DITO's initial technical audit was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the delay, the telco earlier said it was able to complete its first call milestone last year.

DITO has been acquiring sites for its telco towers. It also signed a deal with the Armed Forces of the Philippines to build cell sites inside military camps.

Advocacy groups expressed concern over possible spying on the Philippine military from the China-backed telco, but both DITO and the government denied claims that the third telco can use government facilities for espionage.

Commissioner Johannes Bernabe of the Philippine Competition Commission meanwhile said they will be watching DITO’s commercial launch next month when the public finally gets a chance to avail of its services.

"That, of course, will also require our close monitoring to ensure the allocation of a significant amount of 5G frequency given to it will also redound to the benefit of consumers, such as their commitments under the terms of reference to ensure a timely and speedy implementation of the roll-out of the telecoms services that they undertook to provide will be again complied with," he added.

With a report from Warren de Guzman

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