THE House committee on information and communications technology has welcomed a memorandum circular issued by the National Telecommunications Commission on lowered interconnection charges for voice calls for all networks.
Tarlac Rep. Victor Yap, the panel chairman, was referring to Memo Circular 09-11-2016 which said interconnection rates of Globe Telecom’s and PLDT’s voice services will no longer be higher than P2.50 per minute by Jan 1, 2017.
“I am glad that finally, the NTC heeded the clamor to release this memo to all telcos. This is long overdue. Consumers have been dealing with intermittent connection, dropped calls and other service interruptions despite the fact that they are paying one of the highest voice call rates in Asia,” Yap said.
“We must remember that when the NTC issued the 2011 memorandum circular lowering the interconnection rate for SMS from P0.35 to P0.15, the SMS rates in the Philippine became the lowest in Asia,” Yap said.
The lawmaker said the release of the NTC memo lowering interconnection charges from P4.00/minute to P2.50 per minute should result to unlimited calls to other networks, just like what happened with unlimited texts.
“Users will continue to shift to internet-based applications like Facebook, Viber, Skype and WhatsApp if they don’t make it unlicalls. This is already evident from the declining cellular voice revenues of Globe and PLDT over the last few months,” he said.
Yap said the memorandum must pave the way for the already existing promos which include unlicalls to other networks to make permanent.
“Why not make this permanent? The release of this memo will hopefully make unlicalls to all networks a standard practice among telcos who have been remiss in some of their duties as providers of an essential service to the people,” he ended.
During the first organizational meeting of the ICT committee last Oct. 12, 2016, it was revealed by the NTC that the present interconnection rates between telcos at P4.00 per minute drives the cost higher and there are already plans to lower the interconnection charges before the end of 2016 or early 2017.
The NTC explained that the P4.00 telcos charge each other is a fixed rate for every call they facilitate and process from consumers of different networks. This is paid by more than 199 million subscribers whenever they make a call, including the much-lamented failed calls and dropped calls which have been the subject of several privilege speeches in Congress.
Yap and other committee members then pressed the NTC for the speedy issuance of the relevant circular to lower interconnection charges for voice calls before yearend.
The new memorandum circular (MC) on interconnection charges for voice services was signed a few days after President Rodrigo Duterte’s pronouncement for telcos to lower rates or improve services or he will open the markets to foreign players.
