It looks like San Miguel Corp.’s  (SMC) entry to the highly competitive telecommunications market will be realized sooner than expected.

This as Ramon Ang, president and chief executive of SMC, now sits as chairman of Liberty Telecoms Holdings Inc., replacing Gilbert Dee. The SMC executive also replaced Raymond  Moreno in the Liberty board after he resigned, together with two other directors, Raul de Mesa and Luis Manuel Gatmaitan. Liberty Telecom made this disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange after its December 9 special board meeting.

Also during the meeting, the board approved Liberty’s authorized capital stock increase by P4.8 billion, all of which are preferred shares. Insiders say the company needs to be recapitalized after it suspended business operations due to lack of capital in operating and expanding the business in 2005. The company even applied for rehabilitation with the Regional Trial Court in Makati in 2007.

Since then, the management of Liberty Telecom was looking for a prospective investor that could bring back the company to its normal operations and earn money with its planned services of affiliated company, Liberty Broadcasting Network.

During the meeting, the Liberty board also approved “the fixed valuation of all preferred shares of stock of the corporation at a price of P1.50 per share until May 29, 2010, for any issuance thereof by the corporation subsequent to the 4,800,000,000 increase in preferred shares.”

SMC on Monday announced it was working on a joint-venture partnership with Qatar Telecom QSC, which recently acquired 27.12 percent of Liberty.

Qatar Telecom is an integrated telecommunications player, which offers services to 16 countries with total population coverage of 550 million and a subscriber base of 55 million. It is majority-owned by the state of Qatar.

The Liberty board also okayed the issuance of preferred shares to Wi-Tribe Ltd. and or White Dawn Solution Holdings Inc., or their assignees, in consideration for the conversion of loans and payables of the corporation into equity. Wi-Tribe is the Wi-Max brand of Qatar Telecom.

Liberty Telecom had earlier announced it plans to operate a nationwide voice and data network called Wi-Max, which would be the main service or product in the 10-year rehab plan.

The Wi-Max network, which will provide wireless broadband service to coverage areas, is expected to contribute more than 90 percent to Liberty’s total projected revenues. It claimed that its capability to take advantage of the promising Wi-Max technology will put the company at least on a par with the other phone firms in the country. Liberty is holding on to its previous frequencies situated in the 700-megahertz frequency bandwidth.

SMC’s pronouncement to go into the telecom business has turned the heads of many in the industry. Insiders say the company now has the capability to corner a deal as big as the controversial national broadband network (NBN) project of the government.

According to them, since the alleged questionable contract entered into by the government and China’s Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Co. Ltd. (ZTE) is cancelled, chances for Liberty to get the deal is big, should the government decide to rebid it.

However, the insiders said, should Liberty get the NBN deal, they expect the close relations between First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and newly elected Liberty chairman Ramon Ang might be pointed to by some groups.

In April 2007, Transporation Secretary Leandro Mendoza and ZTE Corp. vice president Yu Yong entered into a $ 329.5-million contract for a national broadband network that will improve government communications capabilities. This led to many controversies and investigations that even went as far as the Supreme Court. President Arroyo canceled the project on October 2, 2007.