NTC bats for P1/10-sec cellphone call

One peso for a 10-second mobile phone call?

This is what the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has asked the different cellular mobile telephone system (CMTS) service providers to look into, in order for the government to allow them to continue implementing their move to reduce free text message allocations.

NTC Commissioner Eliseo Rio brought up the idea in separate discussions with Globe Telecom, Smart Communications, Pilipino Telephone Inc. (Piltel), and Isla Communications (Islacom), all of which said they would study the proposal.

The NTC earlier asked the cellular companies to withdraw their court case which prevented the agency from implementing a six-second pulse rate for cellular voice calls. Had this been implemented, voice calls will be charged every six seconds instead of the existing scheme which charges by the minute even if the call is only for less then 60 seconds, or even for dropped calls.

The implementation of the six second pulse rate would have been reason enough for the NTC to allow the free text message allocation reduction by 67 percent.

However, the six-second pulse rate may be difficult to implement considering that the interconnection charges between the cellular companies are billed by the minute.

Rio said that the short voice call service is one way of reducing the cost of voice calls to basically the same rate as that of text messaging which is charged P1 for every message sent.

In order for the cellular companies to implement the short voice call service, they may have to install a software that will distinguish between calls that have a duration of 10 seconds and charge this only P1. Some say it might require a change in the network configuration.

Rio told The STAR that a 10-second call is enough time for a subscriber to relay a voice message which if sent via text messaging will consist of around 120 characters (the average maximum length of text message allowed by many mobile phones).

The NTC earlier said there was a distortion in rates in the sense that while a cellular network was originally designed for voice, a large part of its usage is now for text. In fact, out of eight carrier time slots, only one is dedicated for text messaging and data while seven are for voice, but the seven are underutilized.

And because voice calls are more expensive at P8 per minute, there is no incentive for a subscriber to use it, Rio said, adding that a network becomes inefficient if there are voice channels that are not used.

The NTC added that if the main service of the CMTS continues to shift from voice to text, this will require a restructuring of the rates both for text and voice service.