PLDT Inc. wireless unit Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. have urged DITO Telecommunity Corp. to settle the penalties due to the fraudulent mobile calls which continue to violate their interconnection deals.
Both Smart and Globe said their interconnection with DITO are existing and are working despite the pending complaints filed before the National Telecommunications Commission and the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC).
In a statement, Roy Ibay, Smart vice president for regulatory affairs, said Smart continues to honor its existing interconnection agreement with DITO.
“It is a disturbing development that while Smart continues to interconnect with DITO despite these outstanding issues and while we were still negotiating with DITO on a bypass agreement, DITO now attempts to avoid liability for these fraudulent international calls by filing a baseless complaint with the PCC accusing Smart of anti-competitive behavior,” Ibay said.
At present, DITO has a pending request with the NTC for additional capacity citing congestion and overutilization of trunks.
However, Smart argued that before asking for extra capacity, DITO should first clamp down on its subscribers who have abused the interconnection framework to make fraudulent international calls to Smart subscribers under local rates.
“Smart reiterates its willingness to grant DITO’s request for capacity augmentation, provided that it sign an agreement to compensate Smart fairly in the event that such fraudulent calls continue to proliferate. Otherwise, Smart cannot allow its interconnection arrangement with DITO to perpetuate fraud,” Ibay said.
According to Ibay, these illegal bypass activities committed by DITO subscribers to the detriment of Smart also negatively impact the Philippine government, depriving it of the corresponding tax revenues from international voice traffic that could have been used to provide basic public services.
Meanwhile, Globe asserted DITO continues to violate its interconnect agreement due to the latter’s refusal to pay the P622 million it owes Globe over fraudulent calls through its network.
Globe said DITO’s debt increases about P2.5 million every day, with an average of 1,000 fraudulent calls detected daily. It added that DITO has ignored calls for payment even though compensation is clearly stated in its interconnect agreement with Globe.
This matter is the subject of Globe’s request for the NTC to temporarily disconnect the interconnection trunk lines between Globe and DITO over persistent fraudulent calls that pass through DITO’s network into Globe.
“These illegal calls clog the network to the detriment of our customers. We need to take utmost caution as ISR (international simple resale) calls also carry the risk of exposing our customers to vishing or voice call scams,” said Froilan Castelo, Globe Group general counsel.
“This is a clear violation of Article 10.1 of our interconnection agreement with DITO, which defines bypass as ‘activity, whether undertaken unilaterally by a Party, or jointly by a Party and its subscriber, or a third Party, that deprives a Party its due compensation for traffic terminated or routed to its network’,” Castelo added.
Under the interconnect agreement, DITO is accountable for bypass traffic committed by a third party using its network, the company said. Globe, being the aggrieved party, is entitled to bypass compensation as stipulated in the agreement.
In response, DITO said Smart has taken a similar approach as Globe with regard to its position on the PCC complaints that DITO filed.
In a statement, Adel Tamano. DITO chief administrative officer, clarified that these ISR calls were not made by DITO.
“Rather, these are fraudulent calls made by third parties — and DITO is equally a victim of such calls. Additionally, there are also ISR calls from Smart to DITO. It is not true that DITO has not taken steps to stop ISR calls to Smart. We have the data and the facts to show the steps undertaken by DITO to minimize these international simple resale calls,” he added. – Myla Iglesias
