50 Cent Text Rate Arbitrarily Set, Should Be Made Permanent; Real Price May Be Lower
The economist Mrs. Arroyo is trying to cheat the public over the so-called 50 percent reduction in texting rates which she pompously announced in her eighth State of the Nation Address yesterday,
according to consumer group TXTPower.
“The truth is, text messages may already cost less than 50 centavos. The forward march of mobile technology and the gigantic profit rates for the past years have lowered the cost of sending text messages to absurdly low levels, far lower than P0.50,” said TXTPower president Anthony Ian Cruz.
Cruz said that “the setting of a price of P1.00 before and P0.50 now, upon the request of Mrs. Arroyo, is obviously arbitrary and does not reflect the real cost of texting.”
According to Kim Gargar, TXTPower Convenor, “the P0.50 rate should be made permanent even if we all know that the cost is much lower. It will still provide a relief for the texting Filipinos. Otherwise, this is just one of the President’s survival tactics, and does not prove any sincerity in helping the poor.”
“We challenge the President to order the National Telecommunications Commission to study the real cost of sending one text message, the impact of so-called interconnection fees and the slapping of the
12-percent VAT on text messaging and calls,” said Cruz.
Under the law, telcos must show the real cost of telecommunications services and such should be the basis of pricing schemes.
“But such is not the case. Both the P1.00 rate before and the P0.50 do not reflect the true price of text messaging,” Cruz said.
According to TXTPower, given the “promo pricing” offered by telcos Smart, Globe and Sun, “the real price of texting may be 100 text messages for just P1.00 and may even be cheaper if VAT and
inter-connection charges are removed. ###
References:
Anthony Ian “Tonyo” Cruz – 0917-8128827
President, TXTPower
Kim Gargar- 0928-3427754
Convenor, TXTPower
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