According Inquirer.net:
The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on saturday announced a new “per pulse” rate for voice calls on cellular phones which would make billing more reflective of the real costs of a call.
Under the new rates, telecom firms will be allowed to charge a “flag down” rate of P3 for the first two pulses, or a total of 12 seconds. Every succeeding pulse will then be billed. Each minute has 10 six-second pulses.
To illustrate, assuming the prevailing rate is P7.50 per minute, every pulse after the flag down rate will cost 56 centavos. After the first minute, the per-pulse charge will increase to 75 centavos.
The resulting cost of a call per minute would still be P7.50 but calls under one minute would cost less. A 30-second call would cost P4.69.
The new billing scheme takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Sunday for calls made within one network.
The new scheme does not change the per-minute cost of cellular phone calls but it would reflect calls that last less than a minute.
Calls made from one network to another would be covered by per-pulse billing on Dec. 16, the NTC said, to give telecom firms more time to make adjustments.
Thank you NTC!
This seems advantageous mostly to prepaid up to plan 800 but if you’re plan is higher than that don’t you end up paying more than your rate?
Globe Platinum and Smart Infinity charge 3.50 and Php4.50 for same network calls in excess of their free minutes.
Or does this mean more people will downgrade their plans as rounding off to a minute would no longer be in effect so they need less free minutes?