CONSUMER group TXTPower will closely monitor the different pricing schemes being offered by telephone companies via an online price watch which it will launch next month.

This is similar to the campaign of consumer oil-price watch of chairman Raul Concepcion, said TXTPower spokesman Anthony Ian Cruz.

Cruz said existing rates for both standard and promotional offerings of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., Smart Communications Inc., Globe Telecom, Innove Communications Inc., Digitel  and Sun Cellular will soon be viewed in one web site.

“All their rates for voice, text and other value-added services that have been approved by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) will be shown in table-format,” said Cruz.

Cruz said this campaign would be vigorously pursued by his group so consumers are informed from time to time of the significant changes in the prices of telecommunications services.

“We want the public to know how telco services are being priced by the operators. Most of the time, there are no significant changes even if they replace their promos often. As far as major telco offerings are concerned, the price of voice call and text messaging rates remain the same. At times, the rates even go up. This, despite the Department of Transportation and Communications saying that the government will continue to work on lowering the telco rates,” said Cruz.

TXTPower will also provide information on taxes. “For every minute of call, how much goes to the government? The consumers have the right to know,” added Cruz.

Consumers could also file online complaints related to poor service, billing discrepancies, text-spam, drop-calls, vanishing load credits, among others.

The complaints, said Cruz, will automatically be forwarded to the e-mail address of NTC commissioner Abraham Abesamis.

“The signatory of the complaint will be the complainant. TXTPower will just be the one to follow up the complaint. The consumer complaint section will be the main feature of our web site when we relaunch it middle of next month,” said Cruz.

Other helpful information such as taxes imposed on various telco services will also be made available.

Cruz said TXTPower does not need to inform the NTC about the group’s planned price watch program. “With or without the NTC, we will launch this program.”

The NTC met the chief executives of the telcos early this month to ask them if they could implement on a permanent basis the existing rates for telecommunications services.

The telcos were apprehensive. They said the rates for telco services depend on many factors that are beyond their control. They said it is best to offer various pricing schemes on a promo basis.

CONSUMER group TXTPower will closely monitor the different pricing schemes being offered by telephone companies via an online price watch which it will launch next month.

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