MANILA - The Department of Information and Communications Technology on Tuesday said it supports a bill requiring telcos and and internet service providers to give refunds for service outages and interruptions.

DICT said it backs Senate Bill 2092, which seeks to amend Republic Act No. 7925 or the Public Telecommunications Policy Act of the Philippines passed into law in 1995.

Under the proposal, telcos and ISPs must, “on a pro-rated basis, provide a refund credit to a customer, or adjust a customer’s bill, who has experienced a service outage or disruption for an aggregate period of 24 hours or more within a month.”

Prepaid subscribers are also entitled to refund credits.

“It is only just and necessary that Filipinos get the quality of service they pay for,” said DICT Secretary Gregorio Honasan.

The Philippines last month moved up several notches in a global ranking of mobile internet and fixed-line broadband download speeds.

• PH moves up in internet speed rankings in February: Ookla

Both PLDT and Globe Telecom have said that they are spending record amounts on capital expenditures to improve their networks, as third telco DITO Telecommunity finally launched commercial services earlier this month.

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