Group hits CA for blocking P7B SMS refund

MANILA, Philippines - A consumer group on Wednesday scored the Court of Appeals for blocking the P7-billion short messaging service (SMS) refund that telecommunication companies owe its subscribers.

 

“We denounce the Court of Appeals decision for upholding the interests of telecommunications companies who are insidiously robbing the consumers, instead of upholding the interests of the millions of  Filipinos who are dependent on texting and rely on this for daily communications,” Mac Yanto of Txtpower said.

 

In December 2011, National Telecommunications Commission has set the interconnection charge for SMS between different networks to be not higher than  P.15 per SMS, making the total SMS  charge P.80 centavos instead of P1. The penalty for non-compliance is P200 per day.

 

For almost three years, NTC has repeatedly reminded telcos to lower down rates and return the overcharges to the subscribers. The telcos have adamantly refused to do so.

 

Txtpower has set up an online SMS refund tracker based on the price set by NTC. 

 

As of August 27, the telcos owe as much as P8 billion and is increasing every text message sent. 

 

“Telcos are arguing that it would be difficult to track who to give the refund, and  why not just give everyone a refund? We demand P94 load credit per sim cardholder as immediate refund from all networks,” Yanto said.

 

 Telcos pocketed P71.9 billion in revenues last year from SMS alone. 

 

“Almost 11 percent of these revenues were directly robbed from us by stubbornly refusing to lower the current sms rate of P1 to P.80," Yanto said.

 

 “It can not be denied that SMS is already part and parcel on the way we communicate. It should be a public service. For more than 106 million users, lowering the cost of SMS to P.80 means additional 85  for every 100 load credit,” he added.