NTC mulls sanctions against telcos providing lousy service

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is studying the possibility of sanctioning telecommunications companies for poor service by barring them from signing up new subscribers.   During Tuesday's budget hearing at the Senate, finance committee chair Sen. Franklin Drilon asked the industry regulator what it was doing to address the poor service consumers were getting from their service providers.   "The consumers look at you as the regulatory agency and, in my view, there appears to be no regulation at all for the benefit of the public, given the kind of service we are getting from these companies," the senator said.   NTC Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba said they are looking at possible sanctions or fines against inefficient service providers as prescribed by the Public Service Law.   But since the prescribed amount is only P200 a day, the commissioner said they are also studying the possibility of imposing provisions in one of their memorandum circulars that says if telcos "do not perform at par" with the standards set by the NTC, they can be sanctioned.   "It's not actually a penalty, but to ensure service po na hindi siya puwede kumuha ng additional subscribers until [the service has improved]," he said.   The wisdom behind this approach is that with a fixed – or non-increasing –number of subscribers, the service can no longer go from bad to worse, according to the NTC chief.   "After we finish the September benchmarking, which is the third quarter, maybe we can impose [this]," Cordoba said.   Drilon, however, doubted the plan, saying he would "… be clapping [his] hands if [the NTC is] able to do that.   "To be honest with you, I am very pessimistic whether you can impose that rule on… telecommunications companies because service sucks – as the young would call it – and the consumer suffers," the senator said.   Newcomer Sun   Tracing the root of the problem, Cordoba noted during the hearing how poor service evolved when giants Globe Telecom and Smart Communications started offering unlimited services to compete with then newcomer Sun Cellular of Digital Telecommunications (Digitel).   "What happened was… early 2000… late 90s, the service was good but when Sun Cellular entered the market – or Digitel entered the market – [things changed]," he said.   When Sun Cellular entered the market, its equipment was new and more efficient, the NTC chief noted. "It was prepared [to offer] unlimited [services], but the networks of Smart and Globe were not ready for that."   The urge to compete and keep up with the multiple services they were offering in relation to the growing number of their respective subscribers prompted the two giants to start upgrading their facilities and equipment, he said.   "Right now Smart has already finished its upgrading and Globe is in the process of upgrading. I think they [Globe] are spending $700 million for the upgrade," he added.   "We expect improvement. Tuloy-tuloy naman po ang kanilang [pag-a-upgrade]," he added.   After the hearing, NTC director Edgardo Cabarios told reporters that as of December 2011, there were 94 million subscribers in the country.   Globe accounted for more than 30 million subscribers, with 1.7 percent of calls losing connection, Cabarios said. "So almost two dropped calls per 100 ongoing calls. Yung isa [Smart] 1.6 percent. They are close to the minimum which is two," he added.   In a text message to GMA News Online, an official from Globe who cannot be named as she wasn't authorized to speak on the matter said, "The NTC benchmark results... parity lang... "[Cabarios is rounding out the numbers... But just the same at 0.1 percentage point difference with with the market leader, that is insignificant. Plus, the fact that the standard is 2 percent... So, still within the standard they set... we passed the standard of NTC," the Globe official added.  In a Sept. 20 statement, Smart said, "... NTC confirmed the network superiority of Smart Communications Inc., following the release of the results of its network quality tests for the second quarter of this year which showed Smart posting significantly better test results than Globe Telecom."