MANILA (UPDATED) - PLDT Inc. on Friday said it has served a Notice of Material Breach and Demand for Payment on DITO Telecommunity for contracted services delivered that the third telco refused to pay.

The demand for payment was for over P429 million, PLDT told the stock exchange.

"PLDT served today a Notice of Material Breach and Demand for Payment on DITO as a result of its refusal to pay the amount of Php 429,726,315.79 for contracted services," it said.

PLDT Inc. said it has "fully performed and delivered relating to the building and provisioning of transmission facilities that DITO required and is using for the delivery of telecommunication services to subscribers."

DITO, in response, said "the information we believe is misleading."

DITO said it was "compelled to enter into an agreement with PLDT" for the provisioning of the transmission facilities to allow DITO to interconnect with the subscribers of Smart Communications to support the parties' obligation under their interconnection deal.

It said Smart's "adamant refusal" to augment DITO's capacity to interconnect with Smart subscribers prompted the third telco to inform Smart the said facilities "are no longer needed."

"Parties have initiated talks to amicably resolve this issue, but PLDT, in material breach of the dispute resolution mechanism under the parties' agreement, still proceeded in pursuing this unreasonable claim," DITO said.

DITO earlier filed a complaint with the Philippine Competition Commission against Globe Telecom and PLDT Inc. citing "abuse of dominant position" as it claimed subscribers were having difficulty calling numbers from the rival telcos.

• DITO files complaint vs Globe, Smart with PH Competition Commission

Meanwhile, Globe urged the National Telecommunications Commission to order DITO to pay fines linked to interconnection issues. Smart also flagged DITO for its alleged failure to prevent fraudulent calls.

DITO has denied the claims and had said that the fraudulent calls were made by third parties and that they are "equally a victim of such calls."

DITO recently passed its third year mandatory technical audit, a regulator requirement that was not imposed on the first 2 bigger telcos.

Based on the third year audit, DITO has covered 72.39 percent of the population, beyond its committed 70 percent coverage on its third year.

• DITO says it passed the NTC's third year technical audit
• Antitrust body to probe DITO's complaints vs Globe, Smart

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