CA orders telecom firms to comply with ‘per-pulse’ billing

MANILA, Philippines—The Court of Appeals (CA) has ordered the country’s telecommunications firms to ditch their per-minute charging scheme for voice calls and start charging their subscribers on six-second “pulses,” giving users more value for their money.

The appellate court in a January 19 decision upheld a previous ruling in favor of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), denying motions for reconsideration against the per-pulse billing filed by Globe Telecom, Smart Communications, and Digitel Telecommunications Philippines.

The implementation of per pulse billing will not result in an outright reduction in voice call fees. However, mobile phone users are expected to benefit because their charges will be more reflective of their actual usage.

“We find merit in the contention of the NTC that with the implementation of the six-second per-pulse billing scheme, the average subscribers are going to realize huge savings,” said the ruling signed by Justice Hakim Abdulwahid of the CA’s former special eleventh division.

The NTC first introduced the per-pulse billing scheme in 2009 in a bid to align the country’s telecom charging system to international standards. The regulator wanted per-pulse billing to be the default way of charging subscribers for calls made to other users.

The NTC said the Philippines remained one of the few countries in the world where subscribers were charged by the minute on mobile phone calls.

The regulator had penalized the country’s telcos, which the NTC said violated the per pulse rule by requiring subscribers to dial special prefixes when making calls to be able to opt out of per-minute charging.

In its ruling, the CA said requiring subscribers to dial prefixes “before they may avail of the six-second per-pulse billing destroys the mandatory nature of such billing.”

And while telecommunication firms likewise argued that implementing the per-pulse billing system would entail technical challenges for companies, the CA ruled that “business and operations… must ultimately give way to public interest.”

Smart Communications declined to comment on the decision, saying the company had yet to receive its official copy from the court. Globe Telecom, for its part, could not be reached for comment.