MANILA - Regulatory fees collected by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) from public telecommunications entities (PTEs) reached P1 billion this year, with phone giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) paying the largest sum with P343.66 million.

The supervision regulatory fees (SRF) collected from the companies are due for payment every end-September. The fees are computed based on the phone firms’, broadcast and other entities’ capitalizations. They pay an SRF of 50 centavos for every P100 of paid capital.

Aside from PLDT, the other 20 firms who posted payments are the following: 

• Globe Telecom - P169.30 million
• Innove Communications Inc. - P99.15 million
• Pilipino Telephone Corp. - P71.21 million
• Smart Communications Inc. - P68.81 million
• Bayan Telecommunications Inc. - P56.82 million
• Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc. - P44.87 million
• Express Telecom - P33.33 million
• GMA Network Inc. - P32.58 million
• Eastern Telecom - P13 million
• ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. - P7.52 million
• Radio Communications of the Philippines - P6.97 million
• ABC Development Corp. - P5 million
• Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc. - P5.12 million
• Philcom Inc. - P4.98 million
• Smart Broadband Inc. - P4.75 million
• Telecoms Technologies Philippines Inc. - P4.41 million
• Bell Telecom - P3.36 million
• Multi-Media Telephony Inc. - P3.19 million
• Broadband Everywhere Corp. - P2.56 million
• Connectivity Unlimited Resource Enterprise Inc. - P2 million

The NTC collected a total of P1,008, 685,048.62 in SRF payment from more than 200 PTEs.

SRF and spectrum user’s fees (SUF) make up the bulk of the agency’s revenue collections. In 2008 the NTC collected P3.2 billion in total revenues, 39% higher than the P2.3 billion it collected the previous year.

The agency generatedP3,206, 680,567.37 in revenues from telecommunications service providers, TV and radio broadcasting companies and other supervised entities. In 2007, the agency collected P2.3 billion.

NTC director Edgardo Cabarios said the agency usually collects around P1 billion for SRF and close to P1 billion in SUF. However, the agency registered windfall last year, with higher SRF and SUF collections.

SRF represents the payment of the various licenses and permits needed to operate a telephone company, a television, radio or cable company. The SUF is also collected from cellular firms, providers of broadband wireless access services, trunk radio operators and other entities that were assigned frequency bandwidth.

Third-generation (3G) mobile firms paid P310 million in SUF last January for the use of 3G frequency spectrum assigned to them. The fees depend on bandwidth allocation to the company. As they build their 3G subscriber base, the NTC is requiring them to increase SUF depending on the actual number of subscribers. If the firms were able to register more than four million 3G subscribers each, they will pay an additional P2 million in SUF for every 100,000 additional subscribers

In 2007, phone firms contributed nearly roughly P860 million in SRF while the broadcast industry paid about P50 million.

Still, the NTC is thinking of other ways to increase its revenues. One method being considered is imposing annual fees on number codes that are assigned to phone firms.

At present, the NTC does not charge any fee whenever it assigns these codes. But the commission believes that these numbers are fast becoming a scarce public resource. So, to ensure the efficient use of these number codes, the NTC wants to charge the companies a fee.

These codes include exchange codes, the 3-digit codes used to identify the exchange where a subscriber is connected; Vvoice over Internet protocol (VoIP) prefix codes, number codes used to identify the VoIP service provider; access codes, which are used to identify the service providers, such as cellular firms, trunk radio operators; and number codes such as 1-900 and 1-800.

In its draft rules, the NTC said that one 3-digit exchange code shall cost P10,000; one VoIP prefix code also at P10,000 per year; one access code for P8 million; and P5,000 each for one 1-900 and one 1-800 codes. The NTC stands to earn P200 million more every year if this proposal is implemented, said Cabarios.

But the phone companies are against this. The proposed fees, they said, are excessive and not commensurate to the cost of regulation and supervision.