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DIGITEL
Mobile Philippines Inc.’s (DMPI) wireless brand, Sun
Cellular, has already signed up six million subscribers
and vowed to add four million more in the remaining
months of the year.
DMPI,
the cellular unit of listed phone firm Digital
Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (Digitel), expects
its improved wireless technology will drive this growth.
Digitel
president and chief executive officer James Go said
after the company’s shareholders’ meeting yesterday that
although Sun Cellular is a “late comer” in the wireless
industry, its advanced technology is “equally powerful,
if not better,” than phone giants Smart Communications
Inc. and Globe Telecom.
“While
we are considered as the third player in the cellular
market, we have both disadvantages and advantages. We
have the latest technology. By end of the year, we will
have the most superior, more advanced technology
platform for our 2G [second-generation], 3G
[third-generation] and 3.5G services,” said Go.
Sun
Cellular, a licensed 3G firm, has conducted a test-run
on its 3G business this month, said Sun Cellular chief
executive officer Charles Lim. Commercial launch is set
for next week.
DMPI is
setting aside $300 million to finance the company’s 3G
business, expand its broadband service, and increase its
mobile-phone cell-sites to 4,000 by year-end.
The
investment will be financed through a combination of
borrowings from export credit agencies and
internally-generated funds.
“We now
have 6 million subscribers. We hope to get to 10 million
by year-end. To acquire that number, we have to keep on
rolling out advanced and the latest infrastructure. We
are confident that once we have built our network, we
will be almost at par with the country’s top two mobile
networks. That is our advantage over them. With our very
powerful 3G network, we will be at par with them in
terms of network coverage and capacity,” said Go.
At
end-March, Sun Cellular registered 5.3 million
subscribers, said Go.
Phone
giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT)
dominates the mobile-phone industry with a market share
of at least 55 percent compared with Globe’s share of
about 38 percent. Digitel accounts for the remaining 7
percent.
Lim said
Sun Cellular will reveal innovative offerings soon. He
said this is how Sun will compete with bigger players in
the industry. “I cannot divulge what exactly we are
going to offer but definitely this will shake up the
local industry.”
The
company, a unit of conglomerate JG Summit Holdings, has
launched various promotional pricing schemes offering
unlimited and cheap calls and text messages aimed at the
mass market and group packages for corporations. “We
have a better value proposition than the others.
Remember that they followed us by launching their own
versions of unlimited offerings,” added Go.
Sun
Cellular handles 50 to 80 million text messages in a
day. The network handles 7,500 SMS (short message
service) per second.
For this
year, DMPI said its network can handle 12 to 14 million
cellular subscribers. By end-2008, Sun Cellular would
have covered 109 cities and 68 municipalities, or an
average network coverage of 87.78 percent. Its 3G
service called Sun Cellular Broadband, supports voice
calls, video call, text message, multimedia message,
Internet access, and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access,
which allows a fast wireless connection of up to 1.8
megabits per second. |
