Telcos: No cut in VoIP charges

No relief for families of overseas Filipinos

Telcos: No cut in VoIP charges

By Darwin G. Amojelar, Reporter

FILIPINOS hoping to spend more time during the Christmas holidays talking to loved ones abroad over the Internet may have to settle for their landlines or mobile phones, as large telecommunications companies bucked a proposal to bring down the access fee they charge voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service providers, an official of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said.

Edgardo Cabarios, chief of the NTC’s Common Carriers and Authorization Division, told reporters that Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., Smart Communications Inc., Bayan Telecommunication Inc., and Globe Telecom Inc. have raised their opposition to a proposed cut during the preliminary hearing on additional rules for VoIP.

Cabarios said telcos insisted that access charges should be “negotiated.” He added that the NTC ordered the telcos to submit their position papers next week.

The NTC official said lowering access charges will expand the growth of the VoIP market in the country, adding that current rates remain very high.

A cheap alternative to traditional telephony, VoIP involves transmitting voice calls through the Internet thus making them less expensive.

The regulator’s additional guidelines for VoIP came on the heels of complaints from VoIP service providers and from Congress that the access charge imposed by telcos remains exorbitant.

At present, landline calls are charged an access fee of $0.12, while mobile-phone calls incur $0.16 charge.

Under the proposed rules, the VoIP service provider shall be interconnected to at least one public switched telephone network, which shall be responsible for the routing of VoIP calls to other networks.

The switched network operator will be compensated a transit charge of not more than P0.25 a minute, whereas the access charge on VoIP calls should not be more than P1 a minute.

For mobile telephone interconnection, VoIP service providers should be interconnected to at least one network, which should be compensated a transit charge of not more than P0.50 a minute.

“The access charge paid to [the cell-phone network] where VoIP calls originate or terminate shall not be more than P1.50 a minute,” the NTC rules said.

It added that no interconnection agreement is required if VoIP calls originate from or terminate to broadband access networks.

“The access charge paid to [switched network operators] is different from the access charge paid to [cellular network operator] because of mobility. There is premium in mobility,” the NTC said.

Two years ago, the NTC opened up VoIP as a value-added service, which means that non-telcos may offer it to the public.

Under the VoIP circular, service providers have to register with the NTC and forge an agreement with the local telco. With the service classified as value-added, telcos were required to open their networks to VoIP service providers.

The telcos had objected to the classification of VoIP as value-added since international voice calls have been a major source of their revenues.