Telcos buck new access-code fees

TELECOM companies have opposed the plan of the National Telecommunications Commission to impose fees on telephone access and exchange codes, saying the proposed charges are “exorbitant.”

In a draft circular, the NTC said it will charge P10,000 a year for one 3-digit exchange code and one VoIP prefix code; P8,000 a year for one access code, P5,000 a year for one number code.

Globe Telecom Inc., Digital Telecommunications Phils. Inc. and the Philippine Association of Private Telephone Companies said the fees are “exorbitant” and will translate into additional taxes to be borne by customers.

“[The] P8million annually for each new mobile access code, coupled with the proposed fees on other number codes are significant expenses that regretfully, must be reconciled with telco retail schemes for the sake of business buoyancy,” Froilan M. Castelo, Globe’s head for regulatory affairs, said.

Castelo said that that the new fees may impede the continuing drive for affordable communication, adding that as a substantial contributor to the government revenues, Globe wants NTC to reconsider or stop altogether the plan to impose administrative fees on number codes.

The Globe executive pointed out that numbers should not be the subject of administrative fees as they are not a scarce public resource.

“We disagree with the proposed principle that numbers are like spectrum, and as such are scarce public resources that need to be effectively administered for which user’s fees will be charged,” Castelo said.

Castelo said the 09XX series alone can hold about 8 million numbers. “There are more numbers to go around than the Philippines’ mobile subscriber market can be expected to grow for several generations - potentially forever when traditional numbering finally evolves into NGN [next generation network] or IP-based locators for that matter,” he said.

The NTC imposes fees on the names and numbers to promote the efficient use of such limited resource.

The regulator said the fees will apply to all public telecommunications entities and value added service providers with assigned names and numbers.

These include the three-digit exchange codes used to identify where a subscriber is connected, prefix code for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), access code, number codes in the 1-900 and 1-800. By Darwin G. Amojelar, Manila Times Reporter