MANILA, Philippines--The Court of Appeals, siding with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on the new per-pulse charging issue, has denied a petition for the issuance of a restraining order by a unit of the country?s biggest mobile network.

The court, in a four-page resolution by Associate Justice Mariflor Castillo dated Jan. 27, said it saw no urgent need to grant the restraining order being asked for by Connectivity Unlimited Resource Enterprise Inc. (Cure) to stop the NTC?s implementation of the new per-pulse billing system.

Cure, a subsidiary of Smart Communications Inc., is one of five local mobile networks ordered by the NTC last year to switch to a new per six-second pulse billing system for mobile voice calls. This will replace the prevailing per-minute charging.

The new system will not bring down the cost of calls per minute, but shorter calls will be made cheaper.

None of the local telecommunications firms were found to have complied with the order, prompting the NTC to threaten to revoke their licenses to operate in the country.

All companies separately filed petitions with the Court of Appeals to stop the NTC?s moves.

In particular, the court cited Cure?s argument that the NTC?s moves were unconstitutional and violated the company?s right to due process, and yet ?NTC Memo Circular 05-07-09 [issued last July] does not provide for mandatory compliance with the six-second per-pulse rate of billing.?

The court said that it was ?not persuaded? by the argument of Cure that the implementation of the NTC?s orders would work ?grave injustice and irreparable injury? to the company as well as the general public who rely on telecommunications? services.

In denying Cure?s petition for a TRO, the court said such an order ?is only issued if the matter is of extreme urgency and the applicant will suffer grave and irreparable injury. None of these conditions is extant in the present case.?

The court said that even Cure itself admitted that through its parent Smart, the company had already complied with the order by allowing users to be charged per-pulse with the use of prefixes.