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Friday, March 29, 2024

NTC cuts telcos’ interconnection charges

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The National Telecommunications Commission said Thursday it issued a circular requiring Smart Communications and Globe Telecom to reduce the interconnection charges on text messages and voice calls.

The agency said the circular aimed to make telecom services more affordable to Filipino consumers.

Under NTC’s Memorandum Circular No. 05-07-2018, the interconnection rates for mobile voice calls will be reduced from P2.50 to P0.50 per minute, while the interconnection charges for short messaging services will be slashed from P0.15 to P0.05 per text. 

The annual reports submitted by telcos to the NTC showed that the costs of interconnection in the last three years averaged only P0.486 per minute for mobile calls and P0.44 per SMS.

These rates were much higher than in India and Australia, but lower than in other Southeast Asian countries.

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The NTC said that in India, the interconnection rate is P0.0154 for text and P0.067 per minute for voice services.  In Australia, the interconnection rate is P0.012 for SMS and P0.067 per minute for voice services.

Interconnection charges for voice services in Thailand stood at P0.56 per minute; Malaysia, P0.48; Indonesia, P0.93; Cambodia, P2.42; and Vietnam, P1.26.

PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom cut the interconnection charges for voice calls by 40 percent, or from P4 per minute to P2.50 per minute for mobile to mobile and landline to mobile voice calls in January 2017. 

Access charges for mobile to landline voice calls cost P3 per minute. 

The access charge for SMS between mobile operators was reduced from P0.35 per SMS to P0.15 per SMS effective Nov. 30, 2011, but it was not implemented because of a pending case filed before the Supreme Court. 

Telcos’ voice and text revenues were affected by the popularity of  Internet-based or over-the-top applications such as Viber, Facebook, Skype and Whatsapp. Darwin G. Amojelar

Globe’s mobile voice revenues fell 5.6 percent in 2017 to P32.27 billion from P34.19 billion in 2016, while SMS revenues dropped to P23.14 billion from P23.19 billion. 

PLDT’s mobile voice revenues also declined 17 percent to P30.72 billion in 2017 from P37.09 billion in 2016. Its SMS revenues dipped 20.4  percent to P26.04 billion from P32.74 billion. 

The country’s mobile market has a total industry subscriber identification module base of more than 118 million, with an industry penetration rate of 112 percent in 2017. 

Globe had a SIM base of 60.7 million or about 51 percent of the market, while PLDT had 58.29 million.

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