Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Jay Velasco has lauded the approval of the proposed Mobile Number Portability law on third and final reading.
The House of Representatives voted to pass House Bill 7652, 216-0-0, which seeks to require public telecommunications entities to provide nationwide mobile number portability to subscribers.
Velasco was one of the principal authors of the said bill. Its counterpart measure has already been approved on final reading by the Senate last February.
Velasco said that the proposed law will protect subscribers from scam and identity theft.
“We, in Congress, believe that it is the best time to adopt this measure since our laws must be abreast with the changing times. As we live in the technological and information age, our laws must be able to meet the needs of millennial and millions of Filipino subscribers,” the Marinduque solon said in a statement.
The mobile number portability refers to the “the ability of a mobile postpaid or prepaid subscriber , who has no existing financial obligation to the donor provider, to retain an existing mobile number despite having shifted from one public telecommunications entity to another, or to change the type of subscription, from postpaid to prepaid or vice versa.”
Under the bill, it shall be the obligation of every public telecommunications entity (PTE) to provide nationwide MNP to all qualified subscribers completely free of charge.
A PTE will also be required to change the type of subscription from postpaid to prepaid, or vice versa, within 24 hours from the time the subscriber completes the application.The subscriber shall also be allowed to port the same number only after the lapse of 60 days from the completion of the last porting process.
The bill also seeks to penalize erring PTEs, with the following fines: P100,000 to P300,000 for the first offense; P400,000 to P600,000 for the second offense ; P700,000 to P1 million for subsequent offense and revocation of the PTE’s franchise to operate.
The National Telecommunications Commission will supervise implementation of the act and ensure compliance to it. Source and courtesy of Politiko.com.ph