What’s Happening To Per Pulse Charging?

We, Filipinos, are often described to have short-lived memories or that we remember events in our midst only for a short period of time . Simply said, we forget what happened in just a little while such that when parties quarrel, we usually say “never mind, they will forget that soon”. It is neither with pride nor shame that I mentioned this negative traits of ours. I just have to say it because while we eagerly awaited for the results of the Senate hearings on vanishing prepaid cellphone loads, no one seems to mind nowadays the implementation of one good result of that event, the charging of cellphone calls per six-second pulse instead of per one minute.

I have had series of blogs about this, the latest of them about the supposed implementation of per pulse charging of calls within a network last December 6, 2009 and the calls to other networks last December 16, 2009.  The deadlines had long passed and what are we getting in terms of implementation of the order by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC)?

Other than the confusing use of different number prefixes except zero (“0”) in calling per pulse within a cellphone network which Smart Communications and Globe Telecom supposedly implemented last December 6, 2009, we do not hear anything more from the cellular phone companies nor the NTC. There is absolutely no compliance by any telco to the order to implement per pulse charging on calls to other networks which as I mentioned above has its deadline last December 16, 2009. Even the fifteen (15) days grace period mentioned by a telco legal counsel had already expired so what now?

A consumer group called TXTPower urged the abolition of the NTC for looking after the interest of the telcos that it must regulate instead of the public that it is supposed to serve. TXTPower also called for a review of local telecommunications firms’ franchises, saying these should be revoked if the companies are proven to be breaking the law in their implementation of the new per-pulse billing system. The consumer group also said that NTC should either be replaced or be given more powers to regulate local companies and better protect consumer interests.

Do we really have short-lived memories that we forget to rise and demand for the implementation of something that has been already ordered to the cellular phone companies? Or are we as a people feeling so helpless that we just allow crimes to be committed right before our very eyes? Remember that we once threw-out a seemingly invincible dictator using our sheer guts against tanks and other weapons or we also forgot that heroic moment already?