070209: Rules on longer shelf life for load credits out

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Written by Lenie Lectura / Reporter

THURSDAY, 02 JULY 2009 23:49

PREPAID mobile-phone subscribers have reason to rejoice nowadays. The new rules on extension of prepaid load purchased by consumers will be signed by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) today. “At 10 a.m. Friday, we will sign the memorandum circular [MC] on prepaid-load guidelines. The signing of the three other draft MCs that we are working on will be deferred pending the submission of position papers by the telcos on Monday,” said NTC Commissioner Ruel Canobas in a phone interview on Thursday. The validity of a P10-or-less load credit is valid for up to three days; up to seven days for P10-20 load; up to 10 days for P20-30 load; up to 14 days for P30-40 load; up to 17 days for P40-P50 load; 20 days for P50-60 load; up to 24 days for P60-70 load; up to 21 days for P70-80 load; up to 30 days for P80-90 load; up to 45 days for P100-150 load; up to 60 days for P150-200 load; up to 90 days for P200-300 load; up to 150 days for P300-600 load; and up to 180 days for P600 to P1,000 load. The validity period starts upon receipt of confirmation of the prepaid load purchased. The NTC requires all mobile-phone operators to provide their subscribers call-data records upon request free of charge. Likewise, access to balance-inquiry service through text messages shall be free of charge. “Pursuant to Republic Act 7925, Executive Order 546 series of 1979, and in order to protect and promote the interest of subscribers/end-users of prepaid services, the NTC promulgates the following guidelines,” the new MC reads. Canobas said “it’s about time” the validity period of prepaid credits was extended. It is one of several major grievances that subscribers have raised against telcos the past several months, highlighted by the recent complaint by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile about the “vanishing load” on his mobile phone. That gripe led to a Senate inquiry, and sped up the process by which key reforms as demanded were embodied in draft circulars. The three other circulars that the NTC is working on involves the shift of the unit of billing for cellular calls from per-minute to three-second per pulse, grouping of bucket pricing promotions and prohibitng spam messages. “We still have a dialogue with the content providers in relation to the other MCs. So, the MC on extension of prepaid load is what will be signed first,” added the NTC chief. Also, phone firms were ordered on Thursday to strictly observe the new rules issued by the commission on dropped calls. Under NTC Memorandum Order 03-06-2009, or the Service Performance Standards for the Cellular Mobile Telephone Service (CMTS), the regulators are only allowing a drop-call rate (DCR) of 2 percent for every 100 calls. DCR is the ratio of calls that are irregularly terminated as against the total number of call attempts. A dropped call is not the same as a blocked call. The NTC defines blocked calls as failed-attempt calls since there are no traffic channels that can be located in the first place. However, both dropped and blocked calls are normally caused by network congestion or hardware problems. The latest order also spells out a new Grade of Service (GOS) of 4 percent, or four lost calls for every 100 call attempts. Previously, the CMTS firms were encouraged to improve the GOS by 1 percent and DCR by 1 percent every two years until the GOS is 4 percent and the DCR is 2 percent. “Since six years have already elapsed from the promulgation of Memorandum Circular 07-06-2002, the GOS and DCR should have improved by 3 percent each,” the circular stated. Canobas said the NTC will randomly conduct monitoring tests to check if the companies are compliant with the updated standards on network quality. “It will be announced,” he said. Globe tops benchmarking study Smart Communications Inc. recently complained that the latest benchmarking study conducted by the NTC on the cellular firms’ network performance was “inaccurate” and “faulty.” Results of the monitoring tests showed that Globe Telecom bested Smart and Sun Cellular in the benchmarking drive test in Metro Manila from the period September 17 to October 13, 2008. In terms of service quality, the results of the test showed that Globe beat the two other mobile-phone firms. Smart had said data released by the NTC should be considered “inaccurate” and that the conclusions gathered during the said drive test were based on such data as “incoherent and faulty.” According to the benchmarking study, Globe recorded the lowest incidence of dropped and blocked calls. Out of 2,475 calls made by the NTC’s National Capital Region (NCR) regional office, Globe recorded only 49 blocked calls or 1.99 percent and 35 dropped calls or 1.42 percent. Smart recorded 93 (3.79 percent) and 35 (1.42 percent) blocked and dropped calls, respectively. Sun Cellular recorded the most number of blocked calls at 779 (17.05 percent) and dropped calls at 48 (1.95 percent). The NTC explained in its recent study that the ranking was generated based on the total percentage of blocked and dropped calls from a total of 2,475 calls to measure the quality of service these CMTS operators render to their subscribers. “Lower percentage of blocked call and dropped call is desirable to ensure higher quality of service and therefore the operator with lower percentage of dropped call and blocked calls was given higher ranking,” it said. “As reflected in the results, the three cellular networks are ranked as follows: 1. Globe [3.41 percent] 2. Smart [5.21 percent] 3. Sun (19 percent),” the NTC said in its report. Besides monitoring blocked and dropped calls, the NTC also conducted separate tests on the network operators’ quality of service indicators, parameters affecting network performance and subscribers’ satisfaction. Based on network accessibility through their circuit switches, all three mobile-phone firms garnered 100 percent, but in terms of service accessibility Globe was first with 97.98 percent; Smart, 96.24 percent; and  Sun, 83.02 percent. In terms of call completion rate circuit switch-telephony, both Smart and Globe got 98.55 percent; Sun, 97.65 percent. On signal reception, Smart got 91.81 percent; Globe, 86.58 percent; and Sun, 84.48 percent. For signal quality performance, Globe ranked highest with 93.79 percent; Smart, 93 percent; and Sun, 84.47 percent. Smart’s handover success rate stood at 99.03 percent, or 3,074 out of 3,104 calls handed over, as against Globe’s 98.27 percent or 2,609 out of 2,655 calls handed over. Sun’s success rate stood at 96.72 percent with 2,539 out of 2,625 calls handed over. In terms of call setup time based on 2,475 calls, Globe topped at 97.29 percent, followed by Smart at 95.76 percent and Sun, at 80.12 percent. http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/top-news/12673-rules-on-longer-shelf-life-for-load-credits-out.html