MANILA - The country's telecommunication firms are asking the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) for a "flag down rate" of P3 to P8 for the first 12 seconds or two pulses of a mobile phone call.

At present, phone companies charge on a per-minute basis. The NTC wants this changed to a per 6-second or per pulse basis by December this year.

In position papers submitted to the NTC, Smart Communications and Cure have proposed a flag down rate of P3 to P6 for the first 12 seconds of a cellular call, and anywhere from P0.70 to P2.25 for every pulse or 6 seconds thereafter.

Globe Telecom, on the other hand, is suggesting a flag down rate of P3 to P8, and P0.70 to P1.25 for each succeeding pulse.

The phone firms said the flag down rate is meant to recover the cost of a call set-up.

The firms have asked the NTC to defer the implementation of the new billing system until January 31, 2010 so they could make necessary adjustments.

Smart pointed out that carriers need to do a lot of technical modification, testing and adjustments to ensure that the new billing system would be error-free. "Since the implementation of the new rates is set on December which, historically, is a busy month, Smart has always avoided any technical adjustments on its network to ensure continuous provision of telecommunications services," it said.

Globe echoed Smart's statements, saying "public service will necessarily be compromised if network is modified during times where call, SMS (text) and MMS (multimedia) traffics are at their highest levels."

The new charging system for cellular mobile telephone service (CMTS) whether postpaid or prepaid subscription is prescribed under the NTC's memorandum circular 05-07-2009 which was signed last July 23.

The memorandum was the third to be issued by the regulator after a series of consumer complaints against the phone firms.

The first two ordered a ban on unsolicited commercial text messages or spam messages, and the extension of the validity of prepaid load credits.