And the Telecom War is on...

[cumbersome]

People should be realistic though. Sun will certainly go back to higher, profitable rates, once they reach a sizeable subscriber base. Their current promo is simply not sustainable. The company will certainly experience a backlash once this happens, just like the way people reacted when the telecoms started charging for SMS.

[BlueBimmer]

thats y enjoy it while it lasts imo

[cumbersome]

Haha! Right on. Juice it for what it's worth.

[silver_corolla]

thats y enjoy it while it lasts imo

tama yan! kaya samantalahin nyo na habang hindi pa binababa decision ng NTC! wakeke!!!

[mazdamazda]

from tulfo

Kontrobersiyal na promo ng Sun Cellular

BAHALA SI TULFO Ni Ben Tulfo
Pilipino STAR Ngayon 02/09/2005



ANG kontrobersyal na promo ng Sun Cellular na ''call and text unlimited" ay makabubuti sa kanilang mga subscribers at sa mga potential customers na gustong makatipid.

Ang siste, ang promong ito'y maaaring panghatak lang dahil may kahinaan at kakulangan ang serbisyo ng Sun Cellular. Una, kulang sila sa cell sites kaya may kahirapan sa koneksyon.

Sa mga may tiyaga't gustong makatipid, ito 'yung nararapat na promo para sa kanila. Pero sa pananaw nitong dalawang higanteng Smart at Globe, ''predatory pricing'' at ''unfair competition'' daw. Tsk-tsk-tsk!...

Akala siguro nitong dalawang kompanya, ''bobo'' at walang sariling pag-iisip 'yung mga subscribers. Ayaw lang nilang diretsuhin na malaki ang epekto nitong promo sa kanila.

Sa halip na mag-ingay ang Smart at Globe na animo'y mga batang nagsusumbong sa National Telecommunication Commission, tapatan na lang nila ng kahalintulad na promo nitong Sun Cellular, tutal kaya naman nila.

Ang kaso, kung sino pa 'yung mga higante, sila pa 'yung mga ''iyakin''! Kung tutuusin, ang liit ng Sun Cellular, hindi nila kaya? Sa bandang huli, ang mga promong ganito, ang makikinabang ay ang taumbayan.

Tutal, serbisyo naman ang pinag-uusapan. Pinangangalandakan pa nga ng Smart at Globe marami silang cell sites, 'di tulad nitong ''naghihingalong'' Sun Cellular. At napakahirap makontak kapag wala ng (Sun) araw.

Bahala na 'yung mga subscribers ng Sun Cellular, sila ang makakapagsabi kung talagang may saysay ang promo at kung sulit nga 'yung kanilang matitipid sa perwisyong kapalit.

[BlueBimmer]

para sakin sulit!! pero hindi na sulit pag uminit ulo ko pag 'network busy' palagi wakekeke

[silver_corolla]

:bwahaha: komedyante talaga 'to si ben tulfo!! hehe.... diba suki yan ng goon squad?

[mazdamazda]

from boo chanco

NTC must keep telcos very competitive
DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco
The Philippine Star 02/09/2005

Every time I am in Los Angeles, I make it a point to make non urgent social calls to people from another area code after 8 in the evening or on weekends. That's because Cingular, and other cellphone companies there, charge nothing for calls made after 8 p.m. and on weekends. I imagine that's because the use of their networks drop significantly after office hours. Since they have them up anyway and can be considered sunk costs, they just might as well earn brownie points from their consumers.

Two years ago, there was another scheme, I think it is from another cellphone company, T-Mobile, where you can carryover credits you didn't use this month for next month. For example, you are on a P2,000 plan and you only used P1,500, the remaining P500 can be carried over to the next month. In our case here, that P500 is lost forever with a lot of thanks from Globe or Smart.

Cellphone companies in the US resort to innovative pricing schemes to win market share. I don't think our local telco executives are so stupid as to be unaware that telco marketing today is a highly predatory exercise. Government regulators should not intervene the way they used to in the past. If competition is allowed fairly wide latitude in a market as free wheeling and technologically innovative as today's telephone industry, the consumers benefit too.

This is why I think the NTC should simply junk the petition of PLDT/Piltel/Smart and Globe/Innove to stop Sun cellular from marketing their unlimited 24/7 service for P250 a month. This is just the free market in operation. It is the kind of market that meets consumer needs.

The giants need not worry too much. This kind of offer from Sun is self limiting. Sooner or later, if Sun is successful in attracting customers in droves, it will start experiencing network congestion in peak hours and the quality of their service will fall. That will be the signal for Sun to revise the offer by raising the price or limiting the 24/7 to maybe, as in the US, evenings and weekends only. John Gokongwei hates giving money away for no good reason.

I am sure the two big cellphone companies filed their case against Sun as a reflex defensive reaction that had not been thought out well. With more than 95-percent market share between them, they must know their claim of predatory pricing against Sun, with the intention of killing them, is simply bull. It is also unbecoming of the two giants to use the regulatory agency when it is convenient for them and scream free market when it isn't.

Not too long ago, the two cellphone giants were themselves on the receiving end of a similar predatory complaint from PAPTELCO, an association of small telephone companies. Paptelco accused Smart and Globe with trying to kill them by offering a nationwide flat rate plan that would certainly finish off the domestic long distance service of the landline based local phone companies.

I sympathize with the small local phone companies. They are a hardy lot and somehow, have played an important role in the lives of our folks in the countryside. But even they must realize that time and technology is fast moving on. It is just a matter of time before they become totally irrelevant. The suit they filed against Smart and Globe may only delay the inevitable. They could better use their time and resources on other more promising endeavors.

The same is also true with Smart and Globe. The big two telcos know they can only exploit their first mover advantage for a limited time. That's the nature of the new telecom business. They know that it is just a matter of time before someone with new technology, or in this case, a new business model, will come to challenge their hegemony. VOIP along the business model of Vonage is just around the corner. Is it right for them to stop that too, assuming they could?

Isn't this also how JAZA presented his case to Ate Glo when he rejected the proposal to impose special windfall profits taxes on them? He was reported to have justified their seeming high profits by arguing that theirs is a competitive business, and they could lose it all just as quickly to an upstart with the latest appropriate technology and the right amount of cash.

Sun's innovative 24/7 unlimited calling scheme for Sun to Sun calls is simply common sense for them. They have invested a lot of money on a network that today, because they entered the market late, has a lot of excess capacity. They are also still building up their network so that for now, it is not as efficient or as reliable as the established ones. I can't even get a decent signal from Sun inside my home in White Plains, a few kilometers from their headquarters in Galleria. From the consumer point of view, there is no strong reason to even try them out.

So it makes a lot of sense for them to offer the flat rate scheme. As it turned out, there was a market for it. For one, the kids who live on an allowance, now have a way of stretching their money. My daughter and her barkada now have two phones, a Globe and a Sun. When they call each other, they use their Sun phone. I can't complain because her Globe bill has been cut to half. This kind of good news is rare these days.

But is that bad for the two giants? Not necessarily. Smart and Globe just have to be equally innovative and resist the temptation to be greedy. I have always thought that we are being overcharged all these years anyway. There is no reason why they shouldn't be more aggressive in off peak pricing, to begin with.

I also have no illusions that Sun will be able to go on with this scheme indefinitely. If it happens that they are able to, then they should be doing something right and government regulators should not protect inefficiency of the other companies by stopping Sun. Let the market be the judge who among the cellphone companies should live or die. It is anti-competitive for the two big companies to use the regulatory regime in a very old fashioned way.

Government must not allow itself to be used to stifle competition. It is as if the PLDT/Piltel/Smart group is not screwing competition enough by making it difficult to interconnect and by demanding outrageous fees. Why should the fate of Piltel's rehabilitation be the problem of the general consumers? If it is threatened by Sun, that's the problem of Piltel's management and stockholders, not the NTC. It is not NTC's job to save Piltel or any telco whose management previously made grievous mistakes.

Manny Pangilinan and JAZA should make up their minds if they want to be cutting edge free market as they always proclaim they are, or shamefully be the old fashioned dinosaurs they often look down upon. They cannot just be conveniently free market.

While the Sun 24/7 deal didn't make me feel a need to shift from Globe or get an extra phone, I think it is an important development. The consumers cannot expect to get any breaks from Globe or Smart (not even on dropped calls) except through the market. Heaven knows consumers need a break badly, even one as small and temporary as that offered by Sun Cellular.

[the_wildthing]

Maganda nga sa US yung weekend tsaka nighttime unlimited... Baka eventually hindi na 24x7 kundi ganon din... ayos pa rin di ba?

[truckman]

apektado talaga sila dahil di ko na din nagagamit ang globe ko.. GO GO GO SUN!!

[KCboy]

mga reklamador lang mga yan. if only sun can improve their services, i'll switch to sun na. dapat nga globe an smart ang magbagsak ng rates to kill sun, if they really fel threatened. eh ang ginagawa nila, sumusumbong sa ntc. i won't be surprise if they get what they want from ntc, since ayala at pangilinan ang dumadrama.

[MAXBUWAYA]

Diba may unlimited texts din ang GLOBE nung bago pa sila. I think it was 4 years ago. Ginawa nila un to attract clients from SMART(analog pa non).

Wala pa yatang GSM ang smart noon, Billcrusher pa yata sila. (last ananlog hirit nila)

Globe and smart should stop putting expensive ads, the use of expensive celebrity endorser and all that bullshit, tayo din kasi ang sumasalo ng cost nila in the end.

Sharon sucks! hehehehehe

Downside lang na pag lumiiit ang kita ng mga gahaman, eh baka mag bawas ng employee.

Teka Smart at Globe are owned by pinoys Right?

And Digitel by 3rd generation chinese family immigrants>?

[BlueGirl]

dumadami na kasi ang nagsun kaya alarming for globe and smart na-aagawan sila ng share sa market na gusto nila sila lang ang nagcompete...ako globe parin, ako nalang ang wlang sun sa barkada ko...okay ba ang service ng 24/7? minsan daw kasi mahirap makontak at napuputol ang call after 15mins?...yung bestfriend ko one time hindi siya makatext...

[KCboy]

guys....what ever happen to islacom?

[RedHorse]

bought by Globe, islacom brand renamed to touch mobile.

[GlennSter]

wala nang magawa ang smart at globe.nag ingay sila...o edi lalo sila napasama!!!bwahrharharharharh

im a loyal smart user...pero come on...kung pagtatalunan lang ang baba ng presyo, sun talaga ang panalo.

sa mga taong biased, wala na kayong magagawa kundi tapatan ang sun...kung magsasalita pa kayo, magiging katawa tawa lang kayo.

[rv]

im using sun and i love it! sarap pang daldal sa traffic! frankly i don't mind the hassle at times of redialing. worst case scenario is to use my main line if its hard to connect. key is to use small phones para madali bitbitin. my whole family uses it like a walkie talkie. all my friends got one too! but i still have smart for my main line. for metro manila use ok na rin! gave one to the driver too

[karlbo]

before it was only two... smart and globe... but then came SUN...

which one would stay in business? sino kaya ang unang bibigay?...

strategy ng sun yung 24/7 bakit di nalang gumaya ang globe and smart?

I THEREFORE CONCLUDE... kailangan panalo pa rin ang CONSUMER... yun lang....

[xam]

kung sino man responsible sa idea na yun...magaling sya...hehe... baka si Gokongwei...mwahaha...

well that's competition for yah...

gaya nga din ni BlueGirl...sa berks ko ako na lang yata walang sun...hehe...but they still have their smart and globe numbers...so what's globes' and smarts' problem diba!!! hehe

[CaRGirL]

i hope SUN is here to stay (but of course, with better network and connectivity)...