A lawmaker is pushing for the promotion of the rights of mobile phone subscribers by requiring telecommunications service companies to provide the public with detailed information of their services.
Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teddy Casiño has authored House Bill 5653, which seeks to ensure a pro-people telecommunications industry and promote consumer welfare.
Under the measure to be known as “The Mobile Phone Subscribers Act,” mobile phone service providers, distributors, and retailers are required to file a petition to the National Telecommunications Commission every time they intend to implement any changes in the market price ceilings of basic mobile phone services.
The NTC is also mandated to set the minimum performance metrics based on the success rate of calls, acceptable level of noise in voice calls, network latency and propagation delay and data drops and unreceived data packets.
The bill also provides that expiry of prepaid credits be prohibited until such credit has been fully consumed. It also proposes that a subscriber of mobile telephone services shall only be billed for the actual airtime usage and number of messages sent.
Also, the six seconds of actual use shall be billed at the rate of one-tenth of a minute using the applicable rate for the particular plan of the mobile phone, whether a post-paid or pre-paid service subscriber.
Pre-paid subscribers bill breakdown shall have a detailed billing at no cost to the subscriber, on the usage of their mobile cellular phone by presenting their consumed pre-paid care or load credit tracer numbers to the designated business center of the service providers within seven working days after the consumption or expiration of prepaid cards or load credits.
The bill prohibits the charging of inter-network access charges for communication, over and above the prices for mobile phone services, between mobile phones utilizing SIM cards issued by different service providers.
It also prohibits unsolicited commercial advertisement sent through SMS, recorded voice calls or other supplementary mobile phone services, retention and disclosure by the service providers of the subscribers’ personal information for promotion or for a marketing program.
Mobile phone service providers are required to adopt a cellular mobile telephony system that will allow subscribers to retain mobile numbers even after they switch service providers.
The Departments of Transporation and communication (DOTC), Trade and Industry (DTI), NTC and other relevant government agencies are directed to implement the rules and regulations of the proposed legislation.
Violators face a maximum fine of P10,000.00 for any person giving false or misleading data or information and P10,000,000,00 if the offender is a corporation and/or suspension or revocation of its franchise.
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