Effective November 10, 2011, telecommunication companies should lower their text message or SMS rates from the current PhP1 (one peso) to PhP0.80 (eighty centavos) per text message.
This is after the National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) issued Memorandum Circular No. 02-10-2011, last October 24, 2011.
Lower charges will be possible because of the order from the NTC to lower the interconnection rates between telecommunication companies.
Interconnection fees are charged by mobile networks for text messages and calls made between subscribers of different networks.
Lower text message rates
The retail price of SMS consists of the cost of the network sending the short message or text plus cost of the network receiving the text plus the cost of the interconnection facilities.
According to the memorandum form the NTC, "the interconnection charge for SMS between two (2) separate networks shall not be higher than PhP0.15 per SMS."
This will be a PhP0.20 decrease from the interconnection rates of PhP0.35.
Therefore, we are expecting that inter-network charges for SMS will be down to PhP0.80.
Only inter-network SMS rates
This order will only affect the rates when sending a text message from one mobile network to another.
This is because the SMS rates for subscribers in the same network has already gone down to as low as PhP0.10 because of the popularity of bucket-priced and unlimited promo offers.
When will lower text message rates take effect?
The NTC memorandum provides that the order shall take effect 15 days after the publication of the circular in a newspaper of general circulation.
The memorandum circular was published in The Philippines Star last October 26, 2011.
Therefore, the circular becomes effective on November 10, 2011.
However, NTC gives the telecommunication networks 20 days from the date of effectivity to impose the lower interconnection charges. This means that we will only see the effect by the end of November.
How about lower voice call rates?
The NTC has yet to complete the rules on lower interconnection charges for voices services.
Under a draft circular, NTC proposed a three-year transition period of P2 per minute in the first year, P1.50 in the second year and P1 in the third year.
The last time the NTC reduced interconnection charges on voice was from P8 per minute to P4 per minute in 2006. SMS interconnection was last reduced also during the same year.
Tweet
1 comments:
wow, this is really a good news for those who love texting. I wish they would do this as well on the call rates because text is only for the youngsters but for people who are busy like us and wanted an immediate result text is not applicable.
Post a Comment