Manglona happy over toll-free service

Rota Mayor Benjamin Manglona said he is truly happy over the elimination of interisland toll fees following the takeover of Pacific Telecom Inc. of Verizon last week.

“That’s great news,” said the mayor while noting that he was part of the discussions years back to grant MTC/Verizon a contract to provide telecommunication services in the CNMI.

“Even at that time, I put a toll-free provision since we’re just one Commonwealth,” said Manglona.

He said he was a consultant at that time to the Rota local delegation.

PTI took over Verizon operations from Micronesian Telecommunications Corp. effective Sept. 21, 2005.

PTI and MTC recently consummated the multi-million-dollar deal estimated at $60 million.

The removal of interisland toll fee means that a call to Songsong or Tinian Dynasty costs no more than a call from Garapan to Dandan.

This is pursuant to a 27-point settlement agreement reached between the companies and intervenors in the Commonwealth Telecommunication Commission proceeding.

Interisland calls used to cost 14 cents per minute.

The Senate, led by the Rota Legislative Delegation, formally thanked Gov. Juan N. Babauta, the CTC, and PTI for working to eliminate the inter-island toll last week.

The Rota lawmakers noted that interisland toll should have been scrapped as early as 1996, following the enactment of Public Law 10-14 or the Fiber Optic Communications Facilitation and Competitive Telecommunications Act. Then acting Gov. Paul Manglona, who is from Rota, signed P.L. 10-14 on June 18, 1996.

This law requires that provision of services “to the islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, be uniformly so far as reasonably practicable, in a nondiscriminatory manner, at uniform rates throughout the islands without additional charges or tolls for services connecting one island to another.”

Despite this, however, an interisland toll was still imposed.

In 1997, the Attorney General’s Office filed a civil action over the charges. The case is still pending.

Besides the abolition of inter-island tolls, the PTI agreement also provides that there would be no local rate hike for two years from the transaction’s closing and that PTI would invest a minimum of $20 million in capital expenditures during the next five years.

PTI executives said there would be no changes in Verizon’s management and employees, except for the board’s membership. (Liberty Dones)