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Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Most new subscribers of Sun Cellular studes
By Arvy B. Enjambre
SUN Cellular, a new cellular service in the country, will be launched in April.
Sun Cellular Cebu Business Center officer in charge Myla Grace Pepino told Sun.Star that as of the moment, Sun Cellular is busy with its pre-launch campaign all over the country.
But so far, most of those who have signed at the Sun Cellular booth at Robinson’s Place Cebu are students, she said.
Sun Cellular is owned by Digitel, a telephone company operating landlines in Regions 1, 2 and 3.
Pepino added that the pre-launch, which has a running time of Feb. 22 to March 9, aims to create awareness and excitement for the brand.
Sun Cellular will offer its first 100,000 subscribers cheaper rates for the first six months from the launching period.
For Sun to Sun subscribers, call rates would be P2 per minute while text messaging rates would be P0.50 per message.
Other rates would be mentioned on the launching date, but they would surely be less than the rates from the other cellular firms, Pepino added.
A Sun Cellular office will also open on the second level of Robinson’s Place in Cebu.
National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Region 7 Executive Director Danilo Sy said Sun Cellular is capable of competing with the other cellular companies.
Rivals
The Philippines already has five other cellular companies, namely Globe Telecom, Smart Communications, Pilipino Telephone Corp., Extelcom and Islacom.
Sy added that since Sun is under Digitel, a company owned by the Gokongweis, which owns the airline Cebu Pacific and the Robinsons Stores and Malls, it has sufficient funds to provide better service.
Consumers had varying reactions to the launch.
Businessman Ben Puesto said he was a little skeptical about Sun Cellular.
He added that the promo seemed too good to be true, so he will just stick to the company he has been with ever since he owned a mobile phone.
Affordable
But third year college student Carliz Ang said since Sun is more affordable and offers lower rates, shifting to another company might not be such a bad idea.
On the other hand, the NTC has admitted that in regard to stolen cellphones, the effectiveness of the blocking service, which prevents a unit from working, depends on the model of the unit.
Sy said that in the past year, the NTC 7 was able to recover 20 units of lost and stolen cellphones (rendered useless by the blocking) despite reports that there are now available technologies used by unscrupulous persons to unblock a unit.
Since most Filipinos use a very common and popular cell phone brand, the blocking service has created a positive result, he said.
When Sun.Star asked Sy about NTC’s opinion concerning the raffle games via text messaging, he answered that the issue has already been brought to Congress.
However, he said the Department of Trade and Industry allows these games because they are not lifetime activities, but last only for a certain promotional period.
Sy also said text games and text raffles are popular not only in the Philippines but also in other parts of the world, especially in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom.
(March 5, 2003 issue)
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