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EDITORIAL: Making cell phone companies behave
Jul 06, 2009 (The Manila Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
The cell phone companies have been a pampered lot. They are some of the most profitable business operations. Yes, they put in big bucks when they started. But they recovered their investments very quickly.
We Filipinos send one billion text messages a day. We are known to be the texting capital of the world. There are very much more cell phones than landlines here. The mobile phone companies have 70 million subscribers--some of these are among the poorest Filipinos. They need to have cell phones to survive.
The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is tasked to regulate the cell phone companies. The NTC is supposed to set cell phone rates. And halt the companies' abuses against their customers.
Longer expiry for prepaid loads
On Friday, the NTC finally did something that won universal praise. The commissioners issued a memorandum circular--MC 03-07-2009--giving the mobile phone companies a schedule of longer expiration dates for prepaid credits or loads.
It took a Senate hearing, initiated by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, for MC 03-07-2009 to happen. For the powerful political leader had experienced being a victim--like many of us ordinary Filipinos--of a cell phone company. Without touching his cell phone, he suddenly saw a big part of its credit load vanish. Enraged for being made a fool of, he told the print, radio and TV journalists, whose job is to interview him every day, about the strange and sudden loss in his cell phone load. He then learned that every one else had been experiencing "the mystery of the vanishing load."
Then, followed another mystery. When he checked his mobile again, the missing load was back--someone had magically replenished his load.
Soon there was a Senate hearing about the state of the mobile phone industry, the performance of the National Telecommunications Commission and the thousand and one complaints of ordinary Filipinos against their cell phone companies--Smart (the industry leader), Globe (the second giant) and Sun Cellular.
Witnesses representing the public as well as executives of the mobile phone companies appeared at the hearing. So did the NTC commissioners and managers. From the hearing, things and facts that media people have always known emerged to help the senators write new laws. (We in The Times have come out with special reports and other articles about the "the abuses of the telcos," from the expert viewpoints of TXTPower, the consumer advocate NGO, and the nationalist scientists of AGHAM.)
NTC, a toothless watchdog
The hearings made it clear that many, maybe all, of the 70 million subscribers of cell phone companies have fallen victim to disappearing loads and many other abuses. Why, the senators asked, did the NTC allow these abuses to go on for so many years? The reply made senators realize that a Quezon City court had made the NTC a toothless watchdog.
Nine years ago, in MC 13-06-2000, the NTC tried to impose rules governing the sale, use and expiration of prepaid loads, the computation of charges based on the length and duration of voice calls and text messages, the issuance of billing statements, interconnection agreements and rates between rival telecommunication companies, and other matters that have been the subject of customer complaints for almost a decade now.
The telcos petitioned the court for a restraining order and won.
That Quezon City court's order, in Senator Joker words, emasculated the NTC from serving as an effective regulator. The mobile companies had the NTC in handcuffs, he said. That realization drove Senate President Enrile to call for the "overhaul" of the 1979 Executive Order 546 creating the NTC. Sen. Francis "Chiz" Escudero and Sen. Mar Roxas immediately endorsed the move.
Emboldened by the senators' sympathy and JPE's encouragement ("Sagot kita," he told the NTC commissioner as he advised him to issue MCs to protect the public from abuses), the NTC issued MC 03007-2009.
It makes load credits: (a) worth P10 or less valid for three days (instead of only one day); (b) worth more than P10 up to P50 valid for 15 days (instead of only three days); worth more than P50 to P100 valid for 30 days (instead of one week to less than two weeks); worth more than P100 to P150 valid for 45 days (instead of much less days); worth more than P150 to 250 valid for 60 days (instead of much less than two months); worth P250 to P300 valid for 75 days (instead of valid for only 60 days if P300); worth more than P300 valid for 120 days (instead of only 90 days).
These longer expiry times will take effect within July--Unless the telcos go to court and get another TRO!
The new NTC memorandum is only a start, however. TXTPower says the issue of extending the expiry dates of prepaid loads is only one of a "myriad of customer complaints." To mention a few other issues: Charging by the minute for calls instead of by the second. Being charged for promo and spam messages received. Fees for balance inquiries. Stiff Interconnection fees for calls from Smart to Globe or Sun and vice-versa, and calls to landline numbers.
Set up 'social pricing' for the poor
And something must be done to set up some kind of "social pricing" for the poor. The reason many people buy P10 loads is the same reason they buy everything in tingi or small-packet sizes. They just can't afford to buy the longer-expiry and cheaper P500 load. These poor people need the use of their mobile phones more urgently than rich people, when they have a desperate problem.
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
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