NTC reduces interconnection charges for text and voice calls

July 19, 2018

The National Telecommunications Commission has reduced interconnection charges for text and voice call services.

According to NTC’s Memorandum Circular issued Thursday, the interconnection rates for mobile voice calls was cut from P2.50 to P0.50 per minute, and for short messaging services from P0.15 to P0.05 per text. This will take effect in 15 days.

Based on the annual reports submitted by telcos to the NTC, using cost allocation based on revenue contribution , the average cost of interconnection in the last three years for mobile voice services and SMS is P0.486 per minute and P0.44 per message respectively.

PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom cut the interconnection charges for voice calls by 40 percent, or from P4 per minute to P2.50 per minute for mobile-to-mobile and landline to mobile voice calls in January 2017.

Access charges for mobile to landline voice calls cost  P3 per minute.

The access charge for SMS between mobile operators was reduced from P0.35 per SMS to P0.15 per SMS effective Nov. 30, 2011, but it was not implemented because of a pending case filed before the Supreme Court.

Telcos’ voice and text revenues have been affected by the popularity of  Internet-based applications such as Viber, Facebook, Skype, and Whatsapp.

Globe’s mobile voice revenues fell 5.6 percent to P32.27 billion last year from P34.19 billion in 2016, while SMS revenues amounted to P23.14 billion, down from P23.19 billion.

PLDT’s mobile voice revenues also dropped 17 percent to P30.72 billion in 2017 from P37.09 billion in 2016. Its SMS revenues went down 20.4  percent to P26.04 billion from P32.74 billion.

The country’s mobile market has a total industry subscriber identification module base of more than 118 million, with an industry penetration rate of 112 percent in 2017.

Globe had a SIM base of 60.7 million or about 51 percent of the market, while PLDT had 58.29 million. DMS