Telcos to suspend text, call promos during holidays

Telecommunication companies will suspend next week their promotional offerings because of the expected surge in text and call traffic, as well as to prevent network abuse during Christmas and New Year’s, the government said.

In an order, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said the unlimited night calls promo of Globe Telecom Inc. and Touch Mobile’s would not be available from 11 p.m. on December 23 to 6 a.m. on December 25.

Globe’s promo is also suspended from 11 p.m. on December 30 to 6 a.m. on January 1, 2009.

“So as to prevent network abuse and to fully optimize network capacity and maintain quality of its services,” according to the agency.

It added that Globe reserves the right to terminate calls made for an unreasonably prolonged length of time.

At end-September, Globe and Touch Mobile have a combined subscriber base of 23.7 million, up 24 percent from the same period last year.

Smart Communications Inc. would also implement a suspension of its text and promo starting December 23, the agency said.

The commission said Smart’s All Text Combo with Unlimited Night Calling Promo would not be available on December 23, 24, 25, 30, 31 and January 1, 2009.

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. group subscriber base reached 34.2 million, of which Smart had 20.9 million and Talk ‘N Text had 13.3 million.

Edgardo Cabarrios, director of the commission’s common carrier and authorization division, said the telcos’ other promotional offerings are expected to stop during Christmas and New Year’s to prevent network congestion.

But he added that telcos are preparing to address the expected increase in volume of text messages and calls during the peak hours of this Yuletide season.

“Telecom companies are ready for this,” Cabarrios said, as he expects the volume of text messages to double during the holidays.

The agency estimates that subscribers sent an average of 700 million to a billion messages on a regular day.

At present, the country’s mobile phone subscribers stood at about 65 million.
— Darwin G. Amojelar, Manila Times