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Monday, January 16, 2006
PLDT, Asian telco deal offers OFWs cheap SMS
Filipinos in Singapore will soon be able to send text messages to their loved ones at less cost.
This, as the partnership of Singapore-based telecommunications service provider M1 and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Telephone Co. (PLDT) will launch in the second quarter of the year a mobile phone service to cater to the Filipino community in Singapore.
“We are trying to replicate what we did in Hong Kong for our Filipino brothers and sisters there. There are about 130,000 Filipinos in Singapore,”said PLDT president and chief executive officer Napoleon Naza-reno in a press interview last Friday.
“We will be providing these mobile services to them in close partnership with the number two carrier in Singapore, which is M1.”
Smart facility
The prepaid mobile services of PLDT and M1 will use the facility of Smart Communications, a subsidiary of PLDT.
“We will launch the mobile service in Singapore in the second quarter of this year,” said Nazareno, who came to Cebu City for the groundbreaking ceremony of the PLDT-Smart Gawad Kalinga Village in Barangay Budlaan.
With Smart mobile services in Singapore, Nazareno said sending text messages (or short message service) from Singapore to the Philippines would be cheaper.
As it will be using the Smart facilities, subscribers in Singapore will be able to avail themselves of various value-added services, like Smart Padala.
Remittances
Smart public affairs head Ramon Isberto also said Smart’s mobile services in Singapore will provide overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) access to services that allow them to send remittances.
“One of the problems of our OFWs is how to send their remittances directly to where they are intended. With Smart Padala, they can send directly, like to schools, if it’s intended for their dependents’ tuition,” he said.
Nazareno said they are still “trying to set up” with schools and other companies a system that will allow subscribers in
Singapore to pay electric, water, telephone and other bills in the Philippines through their cellular phones.
OFW remittance beneficiaries are prone to the temptation of spending the money somewhere else, Isberto said. (ALC)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 16, 2006 issue)
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