DICT defers 1-year validity rule for prepaid loads under P300

Cellphone loads of PHP 300 and higher made after January 5 will now be valid for one year. (Pixabay photo)

MANILA — The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is holding up its new one-year validity rule recently imposed on telecommunication companies for prepaid loads under PHP300.

The government agency said it is giving the telcos six months to comply with the new one-year validity rule starting January 5, 2018 to prevent their systems from crashing and inconveniencing the public. But it stressed that prepaid loads worth PHP300 and up are now covered by the one-year validity guideline.

“We apologize for giving the public false expectations, but if we have to err, it would be on the side of being 100-percent certain that nothing untoward will happen,” DICT OIC Undersecretary Eliseo Rio Jr. said in a statement Friday.

Cellphone loads of PHP 300 and higher made after January 5 will now be valid for one year.

Prepaid credits purchased for promos and other services with a specific period of use are excluded from the coverage of the one-year validity.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) will monitor closely and address all complaints of prepaid loads being eaten up before the present expiration periods lapsed during the adjustment period.

Globe Telecom said it is complying with the DICT’s directive on the six-month extension of the implementation of the one year validity period of regular prepaid loads.

“We welcome the latest directive of the DICT granting a six months extension on the implementation of the one-year load expiration for denominations below 300 pesos,” Globe legal counsel Froilan Castelo said in a statement.

“Telecommunications as a business requires complex, advanced, and real-time systems that should be extensively tested, bearing in mind the impact to our 57 million prepaid customers, including transactions and voice, SMS, and data traffic that these systems support. The 6-months extension will give us ample time to prepare for the smooth and seamless implementation of the expiration change across all denominations,” Castelo added.

Among the initiatives to be implemented by Globe include expansion of capacity, which will include the purchase of licenses and software programming by third-party vendors; system tests to prevent any adverse impact to its subscribers, and additional number series from the NTC in order to comply with the changes.

Globe’s prepaid loads with denominations of PHP 300 pesos and above will carry a one year expiration period.

Similarly, Smart Communications is complying with the directive under Memorandum Circular No. ‎05-12-2017 issued jointly by the NTC, DICT, and DTI, extending the validity of prepaid loads to one year.

Smart, TNT, and Sun prepaid loads worth P300 and above are valid for one year regardless of the validity period printed on the physical cards already out in the market.

“We are grateful to the DICT, NTC, and DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) for the grant of a six-month extension period before the full implementation of the memorandum circular. This provides us more time to implement the extensive reconfiguration of our IT and other support systems and to conduct the needed tests, in order to ensure trouble-free implementation of the new expiry period,” Smart Public Affairs Head Ramon Isberto said.