Built-in international rates?

[baludoy]

SPY BIZ By S.A. Maguire
The Philippine Star 08/03/2006

Built-in international rates?

Cellphone subscribers are wondering why text messages always attach ‘+63’ on the originating cell number, even if the sender or recipient has not incorporated it in his address book. Cost-conscious and meticulous subscribers are asking if this ‘+63’ would get them to pay international roaming rates for local text messages. They also want to find out if telecoms providers have built in the ‘+63’ into their system. Spybiz advises cellphone subscribers to call their respective service providers to clarify the matter.

any ideas or answers about this?

[nicolodeon]

AFAIK, no if the transmission made is from "local to local" i.e. if the sender and the recepient are both in the Philippines. However, if you are overseas and you are using the roaming service of your provider and you send a transmission (SMS or whatever) to a recepient who is in the Philippines, may "international rate" na applied sa cost ng transmission.

[_Qwerty_]

+63 is the Philippines country code.. what's the fuzz there?

pag dito sa pinas.. walang charge syempre.. coz you go through a local message center number.. check your phones..

pag nasa abroad ka.. say globe and you are on roaming.. when you send a message.. you go through Globe's international roaming message center number.. i think globe's international roaming message center is +639170000130

[mazdamazda]

oo nga... what's the big deal about that... they should just check their bill if they get charged or not.

roaming charges only apply if you use your local sim card in another country call/text (outbound). for inbound calls, only accepted calls will have roaming charges. inbound sms are free of charge.

[j_avonni]

I think that's the standard format and nothing to worry about being charged with international rates.

[boybi]

hehe, baka wala ng ibang masulat yung columnist

i always put +63 in all of my contacts, para kapag nagroaming ako, hindi ko na ima-manual ang pag dial.

ito ang weird:
when i make a landline-to-landline call from my place here in tarlac to another town within the province, it is considered a local call, hence, no charge. but if i include the area code, it will get charged as an NDD call.

btw, tarlac and pampanga have the same area code (045). bakit kaya?

[_Qwerty_]

well kung same ang area code.. why would you dial the area code pa?? parang manila to manila lang.. di 7 digits lang dapat diba??

sa cellphone din ganon.. if you are say in Laguna.. and you place a call to a landline in laguna.. that's like a local call lang.. pero kung nasa manila ka.. then make a call to that same landline.. ehh NDD charge na.. it's all in the area code.. so kung plan.. pag cellphone to landline.. kasama sa free minutes.. pero pag cellphone to landline (different area code, ndd).. hindi na kasama sa free minutes..

[boybi]

but it is not the case with pldt. pampanga and tarlac have the same area code, but you can't just dial only the 7-digit number if you're calling the other province, you have to include the area code.

as for dialling with the area code within the province, i sometimes use the caller ID feature to make the call. but our phone's caller ID feature includes the area code hence it dials with the area code. i only found out that i was being charged with an NDD call for my local call when i looked at the billing statement.

[Bogeyman]

i always put +63 in all of my contacts

Same here, kasi from experience, minsan hindi ko ma-contact by voice call or text yung mga cell numbers na nasa ibang service provider, pag wala yung '+63'.

[StraightSix]

Baka natakot sa ibig sabihin ng "+" ... International Direct Dialing (IDD) prefix

OT: When I was in France with the phone on roam, I got billed for incoming IDD calls, along with the parties who called me. Ouch.

And there's this friend in Canada (w/ a Canadian SIM on his mobile) who also gets billed with every IDD call he gets. Needles to say, he told us never to call him again :bwahaha: