MANILA, Philippines – As the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) prepares to implement a memorandum barring “spam” text messages, a group of mobile value added service (VAS) providers are seeking further investigation into the alleged “vanishing load.”

The group, organized by at least 40 of the largest mobile VAS providers, is also denying that they are the cause of the text spam that was started when Senator Juan Ponce Enrile complained that his mobile phone credits were mysteriously disappearing.

The group will be sending a letter to the offices of Senators Manuel Roxas III, Juan Ponce Enrile, and Ramon Revilla Jr. to appeal for an extension of the NTC’s Memorandum Circular 04-07-2009, which will be implemented on July 23.

In an interview, John Alonte, CEO of VAS provider G-Gateway, said VAS companies should not be blamed for the alleged disappearing load as they have a system wherein they cannot “push” data to a mobile phone without the subscriber’s consent.

Alonte defended legitimate VAS companies whom he said practice ethical business practices, adding that the NTC hastily and unfairly accused them of being the cause of vanishing loads.

“Mobile phone users can ‘opt-in’, which means know they are subscribing a data service. They are then charged to their current phone credit load each time they receive data on their phones. They can unsubscribe whenever they want and they won’t be charged anymore,” Alonte said.

Third-party 'collectors'

But Alonte also noted that there are other ways that mobile credit loads disappear, one of which is an illegal method of acquiring mobile numbers.

He explained that while VAS providers can only get a phone number if the owner subscribes to their service, some unregulated text spammers get numbers through third-party data collectors.

“There are groups who collect mobile numbers from filled-up forms and then sell these to text spammers. One differentiator between a legitimate VAS provider and the text spammer is that we use a three or four-digit identifier while text spammers use actual mobile numbers,” Alonte said.

He added that legitimate VAS promotions are monitored by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) while text spammers are unregulated.

Alonte also stressed that the VAS industry is not against regulations since it follows the requirements of the NTC and DTI. “We just want to be given fair treatment by the government and not be accused of something we didn’t cause.”

He added the NTC’s circular could have major consequences on a fast-growing industry. He said there are about 400 VAS providers in the Philippines hiring thousands of workers.

“Some companies have 20 workers but big ones have about 70. The NTC memorandum will kill this business,” Alonte said.

He said about 15 million mobile phone users subscribe to VAS services, which range from mobile ringtones to music and video downloads.

Alonte said that among their most popular services are song downloads, which has invigorated the local music business.