NTC eyes per second rate for landline calls
TACLOBAN CITY (8 December) — Fresh from implementing the pulse per second charge for mobile phone calls on December 6, the National Telecommunications Commission is now eyeing at this new scheme on mobile to landline calls and vice versa.
The NTC is drafting a new circular which will mandate telecommunication companies to shift to this new unit of billing, the per six-second pulse, compared to per-minute charging for local exchange carriers (LEC) and wireless landline calls.
The six-second per pulse billing would hopefully avert the continued slowdown in usage of landline services whose rates are more expensive than those in the new scheme, NTC Region 8 Director Samuel Young said.
The NTC started to implement the six-second pulse billing for mobile phone calls on December 6.
The scheme charges a “flagdown” of P3 for the first two pulses. The flag down rate and the sum of the eight remaining pulses for the first minute should not exceed the prevailing rate.
Director Young said that with the new billing scheme, a cellphone to cellphone call will be much cheaper compared to a call from landline to cellphone and vice versa which would lessen traffic in landline. Landline to mobile call is charged at least P8 per minute.
Mobile calls are charged between P6 and P 7.50 per minute. With the new scheme, consumers would be charged that much for the first minute but will only pay for what it consumed for the succeeding six-second pulses
The succeeding pulse rates for the first minute is at 0.56 per pulse and 0.75 per pulse for the succeeding minutes.
The total bill for a 30-second voice call will only be P4.69 compared to the charge of P 7.50 under the old billing.
A call lasting for one minute and 30 seconds will be billed P 11.25 compared to P15 under the old scheme.
The pulse billing will be the default billing mode, which means subscribers need not dial or register to a certain number to use the new unit of billing.
The per-second billing on phone calls does not cover international call service. (PIA 
