The Frugalista Wannabe

There is one thing that’s so maddening about the Philippines’ mobile phone industry: the prepaid unlimited offers. Maddening because while the flat rate for unlimited calls and texts that would last you anywhere from a day to up to a few days might end up costly, if you think about it.

How and why? Read on.

The Philippines has three major cellular phone carriers: Globe, Smart and Sun. Globe Telecom is used prevalently in Metro Manila, Smart Communications in the provinces, especially in the Visayas, while Sun Cellular is used mostly as a second line. Globe has been marketed as a mobile carrier for the wealthy socialite set, Smart for the working class, while Sun Cellular has spanned the range that both carriers cover.

Before the era of unlimited calling and texting, prepaid top-up was rather expensive. Prepaid credits came in denominations of Php 300, Php 500, and Php 1000, eventually making way for Php 100 denominations. Then electronic loads came in, bringing the minimum to about Php 30 per top-up. Unlimited calling and texting offers came a little later, however, when they first came about when Sun Cellular rolled out its product offerings.

Sun Cellular was a late entrant into the cellular network market. In order to catch up with the traction that Globe and Smart have made, it had to position itself in a niche that no one has ever gone before. And as they blazed a trail for obscenely low cellular phone rates, the rest of the competition had to follow suit, as their subscribers were already heading for Sun Cellular, seduced by the prospect of being able to call anyone, anytime, as long as they wanted to, for only Php 450 for 30 days, bringing the cost of calls to as low as Php 15 per day. At that rate, it would only cost a subscriber Php 0.63 per hour, Php 0.01 per minute to call someone!

Doesn’t that blow your mind?

Today, prepaid unlimited offers could go to as low as Php 25 a day for unlimited calls and texts. Globe and Sun both have Php 25 per day offers, while Smart makes sure that users buy in bulk with their Php 100 per 5 days and Php 500 per 30 days offers.

However, there is a catch to all these. Unlimited offers are limited only within the same network. So Sun subscribers can only call using those obscene rates to fellow Sun users, Globe to other Globe users (as well as Touch Mobile, which is their sub-carrier, aimed at the masses), and Smart to Smart and Talk and Text (their mass subscriber offering). A new entrant, absorbed by Smart, Red Mobile, offers Php 25 a day call and text unlimited services. Red Mobile users can call Smart and Talk and Text users using this offering, but Smart users cannot connect to Red Mobile using unlimited service. What’s more is that if a user is enrolled in an unlimited offering, he or she has to maintain at least Php 1 to keep using the service until it expires. Most users will load only what they need to enroll in an unlimited service, plus around Php 1 to Php 5.

Most Globe users will never text Smart users because they are down to their last peso in their cellphone network accounts. Same thing with the other networks. Worse for Sun Cellular users, because their unlimited offerings could be used without that Php 1 maintaining balance.

Because of this catch, some users, me included, have opted to use multiple SIM Cards. Such a maddening situation.

Thus, the essence of “cheap” and “unlimited” gets lost as you need 3 Single-SIM phones or 1 Dual SIM phone and another Single SIM phone in order to make sure you’re connected to everyone you know. Your teachers may be on Globe, your classmates may never text you your assignments and projects if you’re not on Sun, and your office may have issued Smart plans but your family is on Globe. You can definitely text them, but they may not want to text you. Go figure.

The cost of the offerings in the long run may not be worth maintaining. Or maybe they are, if you’re thinking about getting a plan or going for prepaid. For a detailed analysis, here is where I break it down if it’s actually worth it. The detailed analysis is in a monthly comparison, compared against monthly postpaid plans.

So, is it worth it?

You decide.

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Part 2 of Unlimited Madness: Unlimited Madness II – Cost Analysis

More On Saving On Phone Costs: How To Make Cheap Phone Calls and Lower Your Phone Bill