NTC postpones accumulated phone load due to technical glitch
MANILA – While the implementation of the new rule extending phone load expiry will push through on July 19, the calculation of the new expiry date based on the sum of old and new phone credits will be pushed back, an official said Tuesday night.
"They (telecom companies) requested for extension because of some problems in their software," National Telecommunications Commission commissioner Ruel Canobas told reporters during the launching of Cignal Digital TV at NBC Tent in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City on Tuesday night.
NTC recently issued Memorandum Circular No. 03-07-2009, which compelled telecommunication companies to extend the validy periodsof pre-paid phone credits and the calculation of validity period of accumulated loads is still being discussed.
The NTC ruling dictates that when a pre-paid phone subscriber has an unused load of, say, P2, and a P10 new load is purchased, the new validity period will be based on P12, which is 15 days, not on just the P10, which is valid just for 3 days.
Canobas explained that the telecom firms encountered technical problems on calculating the new validity period for the accumulated prepaid credits.
"It seems that their software was not designed for accummulation," said Canobas. ""We found their request reasonable."
Smart Communications president Napoleon Nazareno confirmed that there was a problem on the software side, and additional investments are needed to be made in computer storage capacity, and switching capacity.
However, Nazareno stressed that "The subscribers are consuming their pre-paid loads before expiration. The life of the load is not statistically a factor," Nazareno said.
Canobas said they have already met with Chinese firm Huawei, a supplier of the telecom firms, and expects to discuss the software issues with Nokia, to resolve the technical glitch.
"There was no (new) deadline for this yet," the commissioner said.
Kim Chiu
Benjamin Abalos