The Proliferation of the Wireless Landlines

 A friend of mine and fellow Consultant, Elmer Cruz, came to my neck of the woods to conduct a workshop for one of his clients. I had received an SMS from him days before, informing me of his new landline number. When we finally met at one of the resorts here, I asked him about it.

Elmer had taken a Bayan Wireless Landline plan, and even showed me the unit, a sleek pocket-sized ZTE device. For P699.00 a month (US$17.50), he had unlimited landline-to-landline calls, even cross-carrier, within his service area. Unfortunately, my corner of the Philippines was not within his service area, so I couldn’t toy with the device. He told me that the best part about the service is that he can carry his phone around, and receive calls at the usual cost to the caller if he were to call a Metro Manila number. This means FREE calls for most callers within the Metro, and other BayanTel subscribers in other areas. Elmer added that the unit came with a cable for PC connectivity, which essentially makes the phone a wireless modem. Considering that the unit operates on CDMA, I believe he can get decent throughput from the configuration. Problem is, he has not tested it yet. Judging from my experience on Globe’s Speak n’ Surf, where I get pretty decent broadband Internet speeds, CDMA is a pretty solid platform, barring interferences from similar frequencies. Of course, it really all depends on the bandwidth Bayantel has dedicated to that channel.

Globe offers their service for P995/month plus P300 for the ammortization of the handset. This policy could have changed since last 2006, when I first started using the service, as these were the rates back then. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any updated information over the net. I have since switched over to good old reliable DSL service.

PLDT’s wireless landline is a different animal altogether. It is essentially a GSM phone, complete with a SIM card embedded within the device, with services offered at near-landline rates. I say so because landline-to-landline charges are still limited to 600 minutes a month, and is computed based on both incoming and outgoing calls. After the 600 minutes are consumed, a P1.00/minute rate applies. Being a GSM phone, it has no broadband internet capability, and the 600 minute cap doesn’t make it feasible for dial-up connectivity. Besides, I don’t know if PC to phone connectivity is even possible.

I have heard people refer to these wireless landlines as glorified cordless phones. I urge them to consider that broadband Internet connectivity on-the-go is not common on cordless phones. I must admit, though, that since the technology commonly used on wireless landlines, whether GSM or CDMA, was actually designed for mobile phones (Remember Piltel?) the carriers have resorted to restricting its use to specific service areas, lest they compete with their own mobile wireless services. Which is why, I presume, BayanTel is able to offer their landline services at all their coverage areas — they do not have a wireless mobile component to protect.  PLDT, for example, restricts usage to a 1.5km radius, presumably tagged to a specific mobile base station (cell site). Whatever the case may be, you get to roam farther than an ordinary cordless phone can. For some users, it can spell the difference between landing the deal or not, when you just need to discuss at length, and your customer expects you not to scrimp on him.

As a testament to my statement, consider that all the carriers provide SMS for their wireless landline services.

Now, whatever happened to Digitel Mango? I seem to recall them being the first movers in the wireless landline space. They had an attractive P660 Plan with unlimited voice service within all its franchise areas. Internet, though, was charged at P0.25/minute, although it was broadband.

And though I have heard many complaints from subscribers of all the different carriers, it must be noted that service quality depends on so many variables, from customer-side equipment to carrier configuration. As with the question of SmartBro’s service quality improving from what it was before, so it shall be that in the future, all these kinks will be ironed out. Ultimately, service quality is matter of signal reception from the base station, which in turn boils down to investment on the part of the carrier, given the current choice of technology’s limitations. Time will come when all will be well, whether with this technology or another newer, better one.

Could service quality issues be the reason why no information is available on the web, directly from Globe or PLDT, regarding their wireless landline services? In this aspect, BayanTel has all the information available on a website dedicated for the purpose. Could their implementation be the most mature? I have been hearing about it for the past 4-5 years.

To add to that, it is always a good business practice to  update or maintain the information on your website, especially corporate ones. Stale information says something about your company.