A consortium comprised of four companies including China Telecom is the only bidder which made it through the first part of a process to become the Philippines’ third mobile operator.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) today (7 November) announced it will evaluate the consortium’s submission for the licence and issue a decision within three days. In a statement, DICT explained two other bidders, PT&T and a consortium led by Sear Telecom, had been ruled out of the process due to a lack of documentation: the companies plan to appeal the decision.

China Telecom’s partners in the Mislatel consortium are local companies: Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company, holding company Udenna and its subsidiary Chelsea Logistics. DICT said the consortium scored highly in terms of commitments involving national population coverage, minimum average broadband speed, and capital and operational expenditure.

In a filing with Philippine Stock Exchange, Mislatel said Chelsea Logistic’s “expertise in logistics and distribution will enable the speedy development of the network” if it wins the licence.

The group’s immediate priority “will be to prepare and to consolidate all the required resources in order to provide the best telecommunications services that Filipinos have been aspiring for”.