BayanTel seeks guidelines on access charges

Lopez-owned Bayan Telecommunications Inc. (BayanTel) has asked the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to come up with clear cut guidelines on the allowable levels of access charges.

BayanTel senior vice president and chief finance officer Gary Olivar informed NTC Commissioner Eliseo Rio that some local exchange carriers (LECs) are being pressured into accepting the access charge levels unconditionally under threat of being blocked off unless they concur.

The two largest cellular mobile telephone system (CMTC) providers Smart Communications and Globe Telecom and the country’s biggest LEC Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) have entered into agreements amending the interconnection charges payable by one party to another.

PLDT and Smart LEC pay Globe P6.50 per minute for access to CMTS calls. The amount is scheduled to go down further to P4.50 per minute by Jan. 1, 2002.

For calls originating from Globe and Isla Communications Inc. CMTS networks to PLDT and Smart LEC, the charge is P2 per minute. CMTS providers Smart and Globe have agreed to pay each other P3 per minute, to be adjusted to P4.50 per minute at the start of next year. On the other hand, for direct traffic between Globe/Islacom and PLDT/Smart landlines, the originating carrier will pay the receiving party P2 for every minute of call.

The amended interconnection agreements also call for new settlement rates for inbound international traffic.

Smart will pay PLDT eight cents per minute for international calls made through Smart’s network to a PLDT landline. This is the same fee that PLDT and Smart agreed to pay Globe and Islacom for the same purpose.

Meanwhile, all international traffic passing through PLDT and Smart networks terminating to Globe and Islacom CMTS will be charged 12 cents per minute of processed call starting last Oct. 1.

Before this, PLDT paid a rate of 9.5 cents per minute for international calls passing through PLDT’s international gateway facility (IGF) terminating to the CMTS firms. PLDT meanwhile is paid 9.5 cents per minute of inbound calls made through the IGFs of CMTS companies.

BayanTel, together with the other LECs that have no new interconnection agreement with the CMTS firms, presently adapt a rate of 9.5 cents a minute.

Olivar said the schemes continue to put LECs at a disadvantage. This is because the said scheme are still not consistent with the provisions of Republic Act No. 7925, its implementing rules and regulations, as well as Memorandum Circular 14-7-2000 which requires that in fixing interconnection charges, the principles of parity, reciprocity, and provision of cross subsidy must be observed.