NTC warns of inability to monitor telco service

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on Tuesday warned of deteriorating telecommunication service given its inability to upgrade equipment to properly regulate the industry. This, following lawmakers' failure to pass a bill that will allow the commission to retain almost a third of regulatory fees instead of remitting everything to the National Government. In an interview, NTC Deputy Commissioner Douglas Michael Mallillin said they need at least P1.5 billion to upgrade monitoring equipment in the next five years. Last year, he said, NTC gross revenues reached P3.2 billion against expenses of about P300 million, or a net income of about P2.9 billion. "We remitted all of that to the National Government," he pointed out. The regulator’s revenues come from fees that companies pay yearly. A covered company pays about 50 centavos in supervision fees for every P100 worth of its capital stock. Under the proposed changes to its charter, the regulator will be allowed to retain 30 percent of supervision fees in the next five years, which translate to about P1.5 billion — enough for now to upgrade equipment, Mallillin said. Unfortunately, the NTC reorganization was one the bills that legislators had failed to approve following the Senate minority's walkout last week. Mallillin said collections from supervision fees usually reach about P1 billion a year. Companies also pay a spectrum user fee, whose total usually reach P1.2 billion yearly, for the use of the country’s radio frequencies. The regulator also makes money from fees and penalties paid by companies for various applications, motions and requests filed with the NTC. Without the resources to finance equipment upgrade, the NTC has been forced to do most of its monitoring manually, Mallillin said. "Basically, what the NTC does is monitor frequencies and traffic. With the equipment we have, we can't monitor these services properly," he added. — GMANews.TV