Cellular mobile telephone service providers (CMTS) started implementing the six second pulse charging last Sunday, December 6. This is a new billing scheme expected to reduce mobile call cost, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) announced last week.
Mobile phone calls will now be charged every six seconds instead of the previous per minute pulse rate which bills subscribes a full minute rate even for calls less than 60 seconds duration.
The new billing scheme applies to some networks such as Globe to Globe. Calls to other networks will be covered by the six-second pulse billing effective December 16 to give telco firms time to adjust to the new billing system.
The new billing scheme is the latest in the series of changes NTC introduced since last year to bring down the cost of telecommunication services as a result of the Senate investigations on the steep cost of services in the Philippines.
According to Gamaliel Cordoba, NTC Commissioner, Smart Communications, Globe telecom, and Digital (Sun Cellular) will implement the new mobile call rates.
Telco firms are allowed to charge a maximum of P3 for the first two pulses or 12 seconds of every call. The succeeding six second pulses will be charged the prevailing rate per minute rates divided by 1, which each minute having 10 six second pulses.
If the prevailing rate is P7.50 per minute, a flag down rate of P3 will be charged. Every pulse after that will be billed P0.56. This will still result to cost P7.50 a call per minute. But calls less than one minute will cost less. Under these new rates, a 30 second call will cost P4.69 only.
However, each six second pulse after the first minute will cost P0.75 each since the P3 flagdown applies only to the first minute. /MP
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