|
NTC extends expiry dates of cell phone loads
Jul 04, 2009 (The Manila Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Telecommunication companies are now mandated to extend the validity of mobile phone loads or credits after the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issued guidelines Friday on prepaid credits.
Under the Memorandum Circular 03-07-2009, the regulator extended the validity of prepaid load depending on the amount of the load purchased.
"Prepaid loads with higher value shall have longer expiration or validity period," the NTC said.
For loads valued at P10 or lower, load credits are to be valid for three days.
For a load worth from P10 to P50, the validity is 15 days; P50-P100, 30 days; P100-P150, 45 days; P150-P250, 60 days; P250-P300, 75 days; and loads more than P300, 120 days.
At present, a P10 load is valid for only a day; for a load worth P30, three days; P200, 30 days; P300, 60 days.
"The validity period of the prepaid load shall commence upon receipt of confirmation of the prepaid load purchased," the NTC said.
Balance carried over
The NTC said that for each new load bought, the amount of the unused loads earlier purchased that were still within the validity period should be added to the additional the new load purchased.
"The new minimum validity or expiry period should be based on the sum of the new load plus the unused load," according to the circular.
Citing an example, the NTC explained that if a subscriber has an unused load of P20 and buys a P10 new load, the new validity or expiry period should be 15 days.
The regulator added that access to balance inquiry service through text should be free of charge.
The new circular takes effect 15 days after the publication in a newspaper of a general circulation.
Nine years ago, the Commission issued a Memorandum Circular 13-06-2000, which provides that the expiry period of prepaid cards should not be less than two years.
The circular also provides for the adoption of pulse charging and the registration of each mobile phone's SIM (Subscriber Identification Module) card.
Telcos resisting
Telecommunication companies have opposed the new memorandum circular.
They sought an injunction from the Quezon City Regional Trial Court, stopping the NTC from enforcing it.
The court granted the telcos' petition, and the case was pending.
Ramon Isberto, spokesman of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), said the company would study the new circular issued by the NTC. "We're studying the impact of this circular to our business and our ability to continue various bucket pricing services."
When asked if the telco would file an injunction before the court, he said, "I don't know yet."
Caridad Gonzalez, head of Globe's corporate and regulatory affairs, said that her company was studying the possibility of filing a court injunction.
"There's still an injunction in place," she added, referring to the case filed before the Quezon City court.
"We're studying the impact to our business as a whole," she said.
Dropped calls
A separate circular was also issued Thursday on stricter rules on the drop-call rate in a bid to protect consumers.
The regulator's move comes after complaints by the Senate leadership about vanishing mobile-phone loads or credits.
In a Memorandum Order 03-06-2009, the regulator said the drop-call rate for telcos should be improved from 5 percent to 2 percent, or two dropped calls for every 100 calls.
A dropped call pertains to an irregularly disconnected call. A call attempted but dropped before six seconds after the called party answers should not be considered a call.
The agency noted that blocked and dropped calls were caused by network congestion and system failure.
In terms of Grade of Service (GOS), the standard should be lowered from 7 percent to 4 percent, or 4 lost calls for every 100 calls attempts.
GOS is the probability that during peak calling hours, usually busy hours, a call offered to a group of trunks or circuits will fail to find an idle circuit at the first attempt.
Under the old Memorandum Circular 07-06-2002, the operator was encouraged to improve the GOS by 1 percent and the dropped-call rate by 1 percent every two years until it is 4 percent and the dropped call rate is 2 percent.
Text spam
The Commission is also set to issue a circular on spam or broadcasting messaging service and per pulse charging.
Spams are unsolicited and unwanted messages, which can be commercial offerings, promotions, advertisements and surveys.
The new circular said that push messages should not be allowed, adding that "subscriptions or requests for contents and/or information shall be initiated by the subscribers."
The draft circular said that commercial and promotional advertisements, surveys and other broadcast messages should be allowed only if prior consent from the subscribers was secured by the telco.
The draft circular added that the mobile network operators should keep records of all requests for contents and information from subscribers for the delivery of the message for at least two months.
Records related to complaints filed by consumers should not be disposed until such complaints were finally resolved. Records of complaints should also be forwarded to the NTC upon request, it added.
NTC data show that since the start of this year, 33 text spam complaints were filed against Globe Telecom, while 69 were lodged against Smart. All the complaints were resolved.
For vanishing load, 10 complaints were filed against Globe and six for Smart.
In 2008, some 136 complaints were filed against Smart, 77 for Globe. All were also reportedly resolved. Another 12 complaints of vanishing loads were lodged that year against Globe, 19 against Smart.
The NTC will also issue a circular on a call rate of three seconds per pulse from one minute charging whether postpaid or prepaid.
It said the call rate to a per-second basis of actual use would assure that there would be no charges on calls that are dropped due to poor quality service, network congestion and those terminated within the first second of the call.
The circulars on spam and per pulse charging are still pending before the NTC and would be subject to public consultation.
To see more of The Manila Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.manilatimes.net. Copyright (c) 2009, The Manila Times, Philippines
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave.,
Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
[ Back To it.tmcnet.com's Homepage ]
|