Byline: Emmie V. Abadilla

Bayan Telecommunications, a member of the Lopez Group. is increasing its capital expenditure from under P2 billion this year to P2.5 billion for 2008, the bulk of which going into its telecom backbone infrastructure, Chief Executive Consultant Tunde Fafunwa told

"We will roll out our cellular mobile telephone service (CMTS) by mid-2008," he added. "We already have CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) phones and dual SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) phones for this."

Bayan's CMTS will be on top of its wireless landline (wireless local loop) service which has the unlimited calling feature of fixed phones plus the mobility function, though restricted to a degree, of a wireless network.

Notably, the company's purely CMTS capex will account for just 10 to 15 percent of the P2.5 billion it has allocated next year. "Our focus is building up infrastructure," Fafunwa reiterated.

Bayan's existing nationwide network is composed of satellite, terrestrial and land as well as submarine based cable facilities. It includes capacities in the National Digital Transmission Network (NDTN) a joint project of six local carriers, where Bayan invested a total of P3 billion as of last year.

In 2002, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issued Bayan a Provisional Authority (PA) for CMTS initially valid up to 2002.

The regulators extended the PA up to November 3, 2005.

Bayan filed a request to NTC to further extend the license for another three years until November 2, 2008.

At present, Bayan has 125,000 landline subscribers and is spending P1,200 to acquire users.