NTC Should Act Against Erring Wireless Service Providers.

Roxas Presses Compliance
With New Mobile Charging Scheme

Government must put its foot down and compel mobile phone providers to comply with the new per-pulse billing system ordered by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Senator Mar Roxas said this week.

Roxas, chair of the Senate Trade and Commerce Committee, noted how Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. have used the "technical difficulties" alibi to dodge NTC’s Memorandum Circular 05-07-2009 issued on July 2009.

"Four months have passed since the NTC issued the per pulse-billing directive. Why do these telcos still give technical difficulties as excuse for its failure to implement it?" Roxas asked.

The Visayan senator insisted the four-month period was more than enough for the telcos to upgrade their software and migrate their current billing systems to the new scheme.

The NTC issued MC 05-07-2009 on July this year after a series of hearings on the so-called "Disappearing Loads" anomaly exposed by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and investigated by Roxas’ committee. A Technical Working Group (TWG) was formed by the panel to thresh out concerns on the switch to a per-pulse billing scheme.

Under the per-second pulse billing system, the regular minimum call of one minute would now translate to 60 seconds, the cost of which would be much lower compared to the current rate of P6 for network-to-network calls and P8 for network to other network calls.

The new rates under the new system is a "flag-down" rate of not more than P3.00 for the first 12 seconds or two pulses. In the first minute, each succeeding six-second pulse will be charged up to P0.56. Every pulse in the succeeding minutes will be charged up to P0.75. Charges for calls should not exceed P7.50 per minute, the highest pre-vailing rate among telcos.

The initial per-pulse billing scheme took effect on December 6 for calls in the same network. For calls between networks, the charging system will be implemented on December 16.

"The NTC must not only threaten to impose sanctions on the telcos. They must impose the sanctions if they are threatening to do it," Roxas stressed. "What matters here is service to the public, not the interest of the telcos," he added. /MP