FOLLOWING investigatSenate of the so-called vanishing prepaid cellular phone loads, wireless phone provider Smart Communications said it had penalized 50 external content providers for violating various rules on the sale and provision of value added services (VAS).

Since Smart started implementing more stringent rules in 2006 following an order from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), content providers have been penalized for more than 250 infractions, the company said in a statement on Saturday.

Smart said sanctions had been implemented in order to protect the consuming public, which has 38.5 million subscribers on its GSM network as of end-June.

The sanctions ranged from warning letters to a month-long suspension and even termination of contract.

“The most common cases are unwanted subscriptions to various services, the launch of new services by content providers without prior clearance from Smart and the failure of CPs to unsubscribe or deactivate the services,” said Roy Ibay, head of regulatory compliance at Smart.
“As a result of our efforts, the incidence of such violations has steadily gone down over the past few years,” he said.

Major violations uncovered included the following: Failure to deactivate VAS subscriptions; sending cross-selling text messages to subscribers without prior approval by Smart; and failure to follow content delivery format and parameters.

“Our users should receive a welcome message that includes the promo offer itself, instructions on how to subscribe or opt-in, how to unsubscribe or opt-out, tariff and the frequency of the delivery of the service,” Smart public affairs group head Ramon Isberto added.

The minor infractions by content providers included: failure to follow the standard opt-out message; failure to submit a weekly report to Smart that lists the mobile phone numbers of subscribers that have enrolled in various VAS subscriptions, and failure to process opt-out requests of subscribers within 24 hours.

“We are strictly enforcing our guidelines to ensure that our subscribers are properly protected,” added Isberto.

The mobile VAS is said to be a P5-billion industry in the Philippines. Globally, the most popular contents among cell phone users are music, sports, videos, infonews, games and other mobile solutions. Consumers pay to access such contents from providers that are linked up to the telecom providers.