PLDT, Smart set 6-month period for bill payments

by Richmond Mercurio (The Philippine Star), 16 Apr 2020

MANILA, Philippines — PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications Inc. are offering postpaid subscribers a six-month installment bills payment to help ease the financial burden of their customers during the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 outbreak.

Starting May 1, PLDT and Smart will implement a six-month installment payment program for the outstanding monthly bills of its postpaid subscribers.

Under the program, PLDT Home, Smart and Sun consumer postpaid subscribers can settle their unpaid balances as of April 30 in six equal monthly payments at zero percent interest and no penalties.

“We hope that through this payment program, we will help keep you connected whether you are at home, the office or elsewhere after the enhanced community quarantine period,” PLDT chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said.

“As one community, we will get through these challenging times together,” he said.

PLDT Home and Smart are also stretching the payment period and suspending the disconnection of overdue accounts of all their postpaid customers until April 30.

PLDT earlier assured its customers that it would continue providing vital communication services despite the constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

PLDT has improved its network by expanding the caching capacity of its data centers which helps avoid network overload and accommodate data traffic of commonly used social media and streaming sites such as Google, Facebook, and Netflix.

PLDT and Smart also continue to boost efforts in supporting the communication needs of COVID-19 frontliners.

Smart recently deployed multi-element on wheels equipment at the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila, one of the Department of Health’s (DOH) primary COVID-19 facilities, which will augment its LTE, 3G and 2G services in the area.

Meanwhile, Globe Telecom said it is also extending the payment due date of its customers’ postpaid and mobile bills by another 30 days.

“We have initially provided a 30-day extension which expires on April 15. In effect, we have given a 60-day credit extension or at least two months of unpaid bills,” Globe said.