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By Darwin G. Amojelar, Reporter
THE National Telecommunications Commission will
cut by more than half the interconnection rates that local telecom
companies charge one another for short messaging system or text and
voice call service.
The regulator’s draft circular released Friday
showed the interconnection charge would be brought down to P0.15 per
SMS, or 57.14 percent lower than the current rate of P0.35.
NTC Chief Ruel Canobas said the cut in
interconnection charge would translate to lower retail text rate per
SMS within a telco’s network. “Definitely it will be lower
because interconnection charge is part of the cost of the retail
price of SMS,” he said.
The retail price of SMS consists of the
cost of the network sending the short message or text plus cost of
the network receiving the text plus the cost of the interconnection.
Currently, the telcos charge P1 per text
message.
NTC Director Edgardo Ca-barios said how low the
SMS retail price will go would depend on the telecom companies, but
estimated it may come down to P0.40-to-P0.50 range.
The NTC circular also enjoined SMS network
providers to ensure that 99 percent of short messages or texts are
received by their subscribers within 30 seconds after these are
sent.
The draft circular stated: “Each of the
parties to the inter-connection shall provide the interconnection
links or circuits required to carry their respective SMS traffic.
The parties shall ensure that termination equip-ment is sufficient
to connect the interconnection links or circuits to their respective
networks.”
A separate circular showed that NTC would also
reduce the interconnection charges for voice calls to P1.50 or lower
per minute, 0.63 percent cheaper than the current rate of P4 between
mobile operators with separate networks.
In Thailand, the interconnection charge to
mobile service operators ranges from P1.36 to P1.70 per minute and
in Malaysia, between P1.24 and P1.30.
In the Philippines, telecom companies
charge their subscribers from P6 to P7 for one-minute voice call.
With the new circular, NTC estimated the voice call charges may
range between P3 and P4 per minute.
The NTC has set a hearing for the two circulars
on June 3 for SMS and June 4 for voice calls. (The Manila Times
tried to reach telecom officials for comments but were not available
as of press time.)
Telecom companies earlier warned of a reduction
in the quality of the industry’s service if the government would
proceed with its plan to terminate charges on text messages.
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