US telcos to resume payments to Globe

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) international bureau is expected to lift soon its order preventing American carriers from making any payments to local carrier Globe Telecom.

The bureau has so far lifted its order in the case of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), Smart Communications Inc., Bayan Telecommunications, Inc. (BayanTel), and Digital Telecommunications Phils. Inc. (Digitel).

On March 10, 2003, the FCC international bureau headed by Donald Abelson issued an order finding that six Philippine carriers had engaged in the anti-competitive "whipsawing" of US carriers on the US-Philippines route, in violation of the commission’s International Settlements Policy (ISP). These carriers are PLDT, Smart, Globe, BayanTel, Digitel, and PLDT subsidiary Subic Telecom.

The bureau, in deciding on a complaint filed by US telcos AT&T and MCI/WorldCom, found the Philippine carriers had disrupted the US-Philippine networks of either AT&T Corp. (AT&T) or MCI, or both, in retaliation for the refusal of AT&T and WorldCom to agree to the Philippine carriers’ demand for rate increases for termination services on their networks in the Philippines.

Effective Feb. 1, 2003, Philippine carriers raised their termination charges from eights cents a minute to 12 cents for US calls terminating to Philippine landline networks and from 12 cents to 16 cents in the case of mobile phone networks. AT&T and MCI opposed the increase and filed a complaint with the FCC.

Abelson then ordered US carriers to suspend payments to the six Philippine carriers until the latter roll back their rates. In retaliation, the local telcos started blocking traffic from US carriers, particularly calls from AT&T and MCI.

The bureau has since lifted the suspe nsion for four of these carriers, BayanTel, Digitel, PLDT, and Smart, upon being informed that these carriers had ceased blocking traffic to US carriers and that circuits were fully restored.

The most recent lifting was in the case of PLDT. The bureau explained that the move was made after it was informed by MCI, Sprint, IT&E Overseas Inc. and AT&T that PLDT has ceased blocking of traffic and that their circuits have been restored.

So far, according to the bureau, it is only IT&E which has notified the commission that Globe Telecom has restored the former’s direct circuits to the Philippines. However, it expects notification to come anytime soon from AT&T and MCI.