WIRELESS services operators Smart Communications Inc. and Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc. (Sun Cellular) launched on Friday a free mobile Internet service to their over 66 million prepaid subscribers nationwide.
Subscribers of the three mobile brands of dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) can now use up to 30 megabyte a day of mobile data with no additional charge. The promo will end on November 30.
“We aim to unlock the value of our prepaid market for mobile Internet. In social and development terms, our goal is to bring the benefits of the Internet to the majority of our people,” PLDT Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said in a press briefing. “Internet access is, after all, a powerful stimulant to growth, and to improving the lives of people.”
Smart Executive Vice President Charles A. Lim said the two-month promo will “stimulate the habit of using the Internet,” which, PLDT President Napoleon L. Nazareno said, would, in turn, entice Filipinos to subscribe in his firms’ mobile-data offering.
Through the special offer, subscribers can use their data-enabled cell phones to browse through and post on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts; visit their favorite web sites; search on Google and Wikipedia; use navigation tools like Waze and Google Maps; book a cab or limo service via Easy Taxi and Uber; or use traffic info sites.
They can also send and receive e-mails; read their favorite blogs or update their own blogs; listen to songs via Smart’s Spinnr music service; shop via online stores like Zalora, Lazada; book their travel details through sites like Skyscanner and Expedia, all without incurring data charges.
Nazareno said of the three brands’ prepaid customer base, only 20 million are smartphone users. This means that only 20 million subscribers have the potential to use the service.
Out of the 20 million smartphone users, only a third are subscribed to the three brands’ mobile-data offerings. “Hopefully, they would be encouraged and, therefore, be a regular user moving forward,” he said. “We are trying to democratize data.”
This free service, however, could affect the bottom line of the listed telco, Nazareno said.
“There will be revenue that might be gone, but we hope this will be made up by people coming into the service and getting into all the rest of the services that would be made available,” he said.
The free mobile Internet offer follows the telco leader’s recent announcement that it has stepped up the deployment of its mobile Internet network to meet the growing demand for mobile data services. Smart recently reported a 73-percent hike in mobile-data traffic, as smartphone prices continue to fall and innovative services like SmartNet and PisoNet allow more and more Filipinos to gain access to the Internet via their mobile phones.
“Our network is ready to handle this program. We hope many people would use this offer,” Smart Chief Wireless Advisor Orlando B. Vea said. “The strength and resiliency of our mobile-data infrastructure enable us to make this special free Internet offer available to our prepaid subscribers.
Moreover, we continue to expand the reach of our network so that we can bring the Internet to more communities all over the country,” Nazareno said.
The PLDT Group has thus far rolled out about 90,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cables all over the country, which provides the transmission facilities needed to support Internet services.
It has also the most extensive international cable systems needed to connect the Philippines to the rest of the world. With Jae Denise Adolfo
Image credits: AP