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PHILIPPINE Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) on Thursday junked the
request of Philippine Telephone & Telegraph Corp. (PT&T) to
amend their interconnection agreement.
In a filing with the National Telecommunications
Commission (NTC), Fernando M. Sobierra 3rd, PLDT legal counsel said
there is no need to amend the interconnection agreement after the
regulator issued a circular on interconnection of local exchange
carriers in local calling areas.
In December 1995, PLDT and PT&T entered into
an interconnection agreement, stating that PT&T shall pay PLDT a
terminal fee of P500 per trunk per month as compensation.
PLDT said the reason why PT&T wants to amend
their agreement is to prevent the latter’s payment of its dues.
“Basically, PT&T wants to amend paragraph
8.1.2 of the interconnection agreement in order to justify its
non-payment of the transport charges as provided therein,”
Sobierra said.
PLDT said the amount due from PT&T ending
May last year reached P8.4 million, payment of which was due
immediately.
“The said memorandum circular does not mean
the cancellation of the monthly fixed charged billings by PLDT to
PT&T considering that transport charge being collected by PLDT
from PT&T represents the net charges for hauling calls between
PLDT and PT&T beyond the point of interconnection or from tandem
exchanges where the parties are interconnected and inward to the
parties respective local network,” Sobierra said.
PLDT said that the rules and regulations issued
by the NTC governing interconnection uphold the rights of carriers
to remain viable in a healthy competitive environment.
“In this perspective, all interconnected
players are mandated to share the cost of facilities not only at the
[point of interconnection]. It has been the practice that carriers
share the cost of the facilities and pay transport charges,” he
said.
PLDT said it has the right to recover transport
costs. “The concept of transport charge has been acceptable to
industry players as evidenced by existing bilaterally negotiated
interconnection agreements.
-- Darwin G. Amojelar
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