The vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations last Sunday urged the government to shape up the country’s telecommunication companies by passing a measure mandating “minimum quality standards” for mobile telephone services.
Rep. Luis Raymund F. Villafuerte Jr. of the Second District of Camarines Sur issued the statement after Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma expressed indictment on the state of internet services in the Philippines.
“Government regulators should all the more crack the whip on the country’s telecommunication companies for them to shape up,” he said.
“The frank observation by Ma during his Manila visit on the quality of the country’s Internet services should not be taken lightly by the National Telecommunications Commission [NTC], given that this came from a global technopreneur who has built his fortune on Internet-based businesses, including e-commerce giant Alibaba,” he added.
The lawmaker, citing the recent report of the OpenSignal, said that out of 75 countries included in a study assessing the average quality of mobile 4G connectivity, the Philippines ranked a dismal 72nd, with 52.77-percent availability and 71st with 8.59-Mbps download speed.
“Jack Ma’s withering comment on the kind of Internet service that we get from our telcos should shame these corporate giants into finally shaping up to improve their services that are below global standards. It should also prompt the NTC and other state regulators to compel these telcos to deliver the kind of service that their tens of millions of subscribers deserve as paying customers,” Villafuerte said
OpenSignal, a London-based company which studies and maps mobile networks, also said the Philippines’s 4G coverage falls below the 60-percent global benchmark it set, while speeds are way below the 16.2-Mbps average.
With this, Villafuerte urged the leadership to approve House Bill (HB) 4695 mandating the minimum quality standards for mobile telephone services, while punishing telcos guilty of “horrendous complaints by subscribers, such as poor network signals, overcharging, interrupted or dropped voice calls, vanishing prepaid loads and the surge of spam messages.”
HB 4695 seeks to require the NTC to come up with a comprehensive and efficient system for subscribers to report their complaints of substandard services by their respective telco providers.
The bill also aims to protect the interests of Filipino mobile-service consumers by regulating prices, requiring proper detailed billing of both prepaid and postpaid subscriptions and providing full mobile- number portability.
Other service improvements specified in the measure include offering consumers insurance for their mobile devices, protecting their right to privacy, and prohibiting unsolicited commercial advertisements unless allowed by subscribers and that must be sent only during business hours.
The bill also provides penalties against erring telcos range from fines of not less than P1 million but not more than P10 million and/or a suspension or revocation of their legislative franchises and other licenses issued by the NTC.
Ease regulation
Villafuerte also urged anew local government units to ease regulations for telcos in setting up the infrastructure necessary to ensure the delivery of reliable, faster digital services.
“There are now about 20,000 cell sites in the country against 70,000 in Vietnam,” he said.
“Telcos have been complaining that they have to secure dozens of permits, mostly from LGUs, to put up cell sites,” he added.
On top of securing permits from the NTC, plus the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for environmental clearance certificates and the Department of Health for Radio Frequency Radiation Clearance Certificates, Villafuerte said telcos must also get approvals from the city or municipal governments, from the barangay units and even from subdivisions.