This Note, adding to the development of legal and economic authors on switching costs, postulates that the collectively
dominant incumbent mobile telecommunication service providers—Globe and Smart—in imposing lock-in periods and mobile number (un)portability are abusing their dominant position. The substantial and strategic creation or increase by a dominant firm of switching costs, which are the monetary and non-monetary costs consumers incur in switching from one provider to another, constitutes abuse under Section 15 of the Philippine Competition Act.