By Lenie Lectura
Reporter
THE Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) group has increased the capacity of its short messaging system (SMS) wireless network, to handle 1.2 billion text messages in a day.
PLDT president Napoloen Nazareno said in an interview that it units Smart Communications Inc. and Pilipino Telephone Corp. subscribers are sending an average of 700 to 800 million text messages daily.
“We are still doing good now. We are doing something like 700 to 800 SMS daily.
That’s all outbound,” said Nazareno.
Combined, Smart and Piltel recorded 22.9 million subscribers as of end-September. In June, when the PLDT group had 22.4 million wireless subscribers registered in the network, an astonishing 800 million text messages were recorded daily. Nazareno said then that the number translates to roughly 10 messages sent by one subscriber in an hour.
“In the second quarter, our SMS network could handle one billion SMS. Now, we have increased the capacity to 1.2 billion even as we averaging 700 to 800 million SMS daily,” said Nazareno.
He said that the SMS network of the PLDT Group could now be considered as the “best in the world.”
“With a network capacity like that, I think we have the best in the world,” he said.
Smart and Piltel’s Talk ’N Text added approximately 145,000 and 320,000 cellular subscribers in the third quarter this year, resulting in a total combined cellular subscriber base of about 22.9 million.
Rival Globe Telecom recorded 14.5 million wireless subscribers as of end-September. The country’s second-largest cellular operator is handling about 250 million text messages daily.
Sun Cellular of Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc. handles about 40 million SMS daily.
Smart and Piltel’s daily SMS outbound traffic is more than three times the average volume of text messages sent in a day last year. In 2005, according to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), there were 250 million text messages sent in a day by 34.78 million wireless subscribers. In 2004, the NTC said the number of text messages sent was 50 million less.
Meanwhile, Smart has written the NTC, requesting regulators to review its 48-hour notification requirement for operators to inform competing networks of their promotional offers. The latter, on the other hand, are then given 48 hours to signify if it would join the off-net component of the promotional offer.
Smart said that this requirement gives competitors advance and critical information, thus negating any marketing advantage it would have gained.
“We suggest that any notification requirement for the offer be dispensed with, at least during the primary 30-day run of any new promo offer,” said Smart.
In addition, Nazareno said that since the PLDT group has continued to offer products and services that provide value to its subscribers, there was no need to further bring down tariffs for voice and SMS at the moment. “We are offering a variety of pricing schemes that are competitively priced,” he said.
Business Mirror
November 20, 2006
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