Telco regulator directs Globe to explain data policy

The National Telecommunications Commission has directed Globe Telecom Inc. of the Ayala group to shed light by next Wednesday on complaints the regulator had received about data capping, or when subscribers are placed on a slower Internet connection after breaching a certain volume.

The issue on data capping has resurfaced as Globe implemented late last month a 1 gigabyte (GB) daily data usage threshold or a total of 3GB per month, whichever comes first, for post-paid subscribers on unlimited data plans.

That means users, on average, should consume about 100 megabytes of data per day, about 25 four-minute song downloads, 200 posts on social networks or 340 e-mails with attachments, to avoid breaching the monthly threshold and be placed on a slower connection. Caps have been placed on pre-paid data services since 2010.

The move highlights the rapid growth of data usage while placing the spotlight anew on Globe’s so-called fair use policy, with the telco arguing that this would only affect 3 percent of its data users.

These users, it said, generate large volumes of traffic via bandwidth-intensive activities like media streaming and downloading torrents, which can slow down Internet speeds for the majority of its customers.

Nevertheless, the government said Globe, a unit of conglomerate Ayala Corp., still needed to explain its side as the complaints it received indicated that customers had not been well-informed.

“Data services are deregulated, meaning they [telcos] can set their own price and terms as long as the customer knows and they know what to expect before subscribing [to these services],” NTC director Edgardo Cabarrios said in an interview.

Cabarrios said the issue caught the NTC’s attention via reports on technology blogs, which posted screenshots of notices Globe had sent to the some subscriber about the data cap. He noted, however, that some users might not have been aware of the policy before signing up to use these data plans.

“It is apparent that because there are complaints, it is possible customers did not know. Why complain if they were aware?,” he added.

In a letter to Globe dated Feb. 6, the NTC said the telco should submit to the commission “comments and/ or your explanation on the said complaints” by Feb 12. It also invited Globe’s legal representatives to its head office in Quezon City “to further discuss the matter.”

In a statement yesterday, Globe said its recent network upgrade plus the prevalence of smartphones and mobile data devices had promoted a surge in data traffic. It said network data traffic reports showed a surge of over 300 percent during peak hours over the last two years.

Globe said it enforced the fair use policy for postpaid data plans to “protect the data experience of the majority of subscribers who regularly use the network for work or leisure.”

“The fair use policy is an industry issue that is being implemented by all telco players in the country, even globally in the most advanced economies,” said Globe legal counsel Froilan Castelo.

“We want our customers to understand that the ultimate goal of the policy is to protect them because we want the regular data users who use the Internet for work or leisure to have a consistently great data experience.   Heavy users will affect their experience and this is what we are guarding against,” he added.