Smart, Globe finally get passing mark from NTC

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has given passing marks to Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc., two of the country's largest wireless providers.   NTC commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba said Smart and Globe passed the Quality of Service Benchmarking Tests conducted by NTC in December involving postpaid subscribers in 16 cities and one municipality in the National Capital Region. Smart is the wireless arm of dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) while Globe Telecom is an Ayala-controlled corporation.   According to Cordoba, both telecom providers passed the dropped call rate where Smart and Globe failed in the third quarter survey conducted last September.   The test's purpose is to measure the network performance of both Smart and Globe and at the same time compare the results to the existing minimum service performance standards prescribed by NTC. On the parameter for blocked calls or grade of service, Cordoba said Smart was measured at 1 percent which was the lowest percentage, establishing an edge over Globe’s 2 percent.   Blocked calls or grade of service refers to the percentage of calls that were not given access by the network or percentage of the network failure to establish connection between the caller and the receiver.   “Both passed the less than or equal to four percent performance standard of the Commission, meaning no more than four blocked calls is allowed for every 100 call attempts,” Cordoba said.   He also said both Smart and Globe finally passed the rating for dropped calls, which refer to the number of ongoing calls that were involuntarily terminated.   The state-run NTC allows only two dropped calls for every 100 calls.   Based on the December monitoring, Smart’s dropped call rate improved to one percent after a failing grade of 2.15 percent in September, while that of Globe improved to 1.2 percent from 2.75 percent.   “On dropped call rate, both companies passed the minimum two percent standard imposed by the Commission,” Cordoba said. Cordoba also reported that both Smart and Globe got passing marks for other parameters such as call set-up time of less than 14 seconds, average signal quality, and average received signal level.   He pointed out that NTC would continue to monitor the service performance of the telcos to ensure the quality of service that they provide to the public.   “It keeps them on their toes to ensure that the quality of service is sustained,” he said.   The monitoring teams conducted tests for one week during the month of December 2012 on cellular service providers to determine the quality of service they rendered during the holiday season.   The monitoring team initiated a total of 1,000 random calls. The initiated calls were simultaneously done for Globe and Smart. The monitoring team made the calls using “drive test” method or inside a moving vehicle. — KBK, GMA News