Cheap IDD in the Philippines anyone?

Leading telecom firms Globe, Smart-PLDT, Sun-Digitel and Bayantel have yet to offer international direct dialling rates lower than US$0.20-0.40 per minute to their millions of subscribers. The result? Filipinos have been forced to spend hundreds of pesos for a few minutes of talk with family members and friends working or living abroad.

This is an outrageous situation because these companies are wittingly cheating us and depriving us of more affordable telecom services.

One solution to this oliopolistic stranglehold on IDD pricing could be the more extensive use of “voice over internet protocol” (VOIP) which uses internet connections and not copper/fiber optic and other conventional media. VOIP has pushed down IDD rates across the world but not here, no thanks to the oligopoly.

Smart-PLDT, through its Budget IDD card, has been able to provide an IDD rate of PhP5.00 per minute to select destinations. What they do not tell the public and what the public should know is that the Smart-PLDT makes use of VOIP to provide such cheap service. We just hope Smart-PLDT would not put stumbling blocks to wider and open use of VOIP by other telecom players, big or small.

If VOIP would be made more democratically accessible and left uncontrolled by big capitalist interests, this technology would be able to lower IDD rates lower than the PhP5.00 per minute charged by Smart-PLDT. It would be a welcome development, a cause for celebration for a nation of relatives of 10 million migrant workers or OFWs (overseas Filipino workers). As such, VOIP should be widely introduced pronto without any conditions favorable only to the fat cats who own the mammoth telecom firms.

Along with VOIP, the Arroyo government should stop charging taxes on overseas calls. The ten-percent Overseas Communications Tax should be scrapped in favor of lower IDD rates.