Philippines operators implement Six-Second Pulses billing

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Shorter unit billing model for calls between mobiles within the same network has been introduced by the telecom operators in the Philippines. According to the new plan, each minute has 10 six-second pulses and the first two pulses will have a flag down rate of P3 or a total of 12 seconds. This will reduce the cost of calls less than one minute, however, cost of a call per minute would remain P7.50. Cost of 30 second call will be P4.69.

According to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the new “per pulse” rate would efficiently reflect the real costs of a call. The commission also said that there would be no effect of the scheme on per-minute cost but the costs of the call below one minute will be affected.

The NTC has asked the mobile operators to implement the scheme on December 6 and till December 16; any call made from one network to another would be covered by per-pulse billing. The new rates will be under scrutiny for two to three months.

Three operators have requested the NTC to postpone the implementation of the scheme till January next year as the changes in the billing system will create problems in the holiday season which accompanies increased network traffic.