NTC orders probe on closure of Easycall’s paging service

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has ordered an investigation into the impending closure of the last remaining paging sites of Easycall Communications Phils. Inc. (ECPI) following a complaint from the company’s Cebu-based paging sub-contractor.

Wilson Yang, general manager of Cebcom Management Corp., has asked the NTC to look into ECPI’s decision to close its paging operations since this was made arbitrarily and unilaterally, without prior notice or any consultation with the regulatory agencies, the company’s business partners and its subscribers.

The official of Cebcom, which provides services for ECPI’s paging operations in Cebu, said as a telecommunications company granted a congressional franchise, "ECPI is providing a service that is imbued with public interest." He said that unlike other companies, ECPI cannot unilaterally close down its paging operations without prior consultation with, and approval of, the concerned government regulatory agencies.

Acting on Yang’s petition, the NTC has issued a show-cause order for ECPI to explain and justify the reasons for its failure to serve a notice or hold any consultation with its subscribers and the commission.

Yang said that at the time most of ECPI’s provincial sites were shut down early this year, there still existed a substantial subscriber based in the Cebu area that depended on the paging link service with the other provincial sites. With the closure, however, the link service was virtually put to naught, thus severely displacing its clients, he added.

By the end of November 2002, ECPI announced it will close down its remaining paging operations in Metro Manila and Cebu. Last March, it started shutting down its provincial sites after noting that continued operations only jacked up the company’s losses, particularly as its subscriber base has dwindled to an insignificant level.

"This will effectively cut down the losses being incurred by the company from its paging operations in view of the continuing deterioration in our pager base," ECPI corporate information officer Leon Dy said in a letter to the Philippine Stock Exchange.

At its peak, the company operated a total of 16 paging transmission sites nationwide capable of handling alphanumeric messages of its over 300,000 subscribers.

In its fiscal year ending June 2001, ECPI posted a huge loss of P372 million, compared with the P60 million net earnings in the previous period. This was mainly due to several valuation provisions, including the write-down in the book value of paging transmission and related equipment worth P197 million and provision for doubtful accounts amounting to P70 million.

Dy said with their exit from paging business, arrangements with Island Country Telecommunications Inc., the operator of Jaspage, have been made for the latter to absorb the remaining EasyCall subscribers who will be given new pager units free of charge to allow them to continue using a cost-effective messaging service.

"We strongly believe that the remaining market base for paging can be profitably operated by the remaining paging operators in the country today," Dy added.