Congress to dispense with VoIP measure, says lawmaker

THE House of Representatives’ committee on information and communications technology (ICT) is likely to dispense with a measure pushing for the deregulation of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in the country.

Early this year, the House ICT committee revived public discussions on the controversial regulation of VoIP services in the Philippines as the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) drafted new rules for this technological innovation.

“We might dispense with the pushing of the [VoIP] bill if we see that the NTC rules would eventually fly,” Representative Simeon Kintanar told INQ7.net.

“I will not comment at this point on the new draft rules, but I’m still extending the invitation to the NTC to the next scheduled hearings,” Kintanar said.

Representative Clavel Martinez of the fourth district of Cebu authored
House Bill 3476, or the Philippine VoIP Act of 2005. The proposed bill indicates that Philippines can no longer ignore the growing of VoIP in both the local and international communications arena.

In its new draft rules, the NTC has declared the VoIP a value-added service and not a voice service, paving the way for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to begin providing VoIP services commercially.

VoIP routes phone calls through the Internet instead of through traditional public switched telephone networks. Its lower cost has made it a popular alternative to traditional voice calls.

Prior to the new rules, VoIP was classified a voice service. Under the Philippine Telecommunications Act, this classification meant that only telecommunications companies with a government franchise to carry voice calls were permitted to offer VoIP commercially, though companies were permitted to make use of VoIP for private networks.

The classification put ISPs and traditional telecommunications companies at loggerheads.

The new rules identify the parties allowed to offer VoIP services, as well as standard agreements between telecommunications carriers and ISPs regarding service performance standards, interconnection charges, access costs, and consumer security and privacy. [source]

April 16, 2005
By Erwin Lemuel Oliva
INQ7.net