racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

To continue my saga on trying out prepaid wireless landlines, I had recently activated Super Duo on my main Globe prepaid subscription. I was very pleased that I could easily call Bayantel lines (which we have at home), in stark contrast to my PLDT Wireless landline, which can rarely connect with my home residence.

But the big issue here is interconnectivity with several networks. For one, I can rarely connect to PLDT landline numbers. This can be very debilitating, since calling PLDT landlines was okay before activation of Super Duo (since this is billed as a regular call from one’s Globe number). But after activation, you effectively lose calling capability to PLDT landlines. Rare exceptions include midnight to the wee hours of the morning. Calling during daytime? Forget it.

Another small issue is calling from Bayantel phones. You get a busy tone, and you get connected after two to three tries. No big issue if you only expect personal calls, but to business users, this can be a deal breaker.

Now I’m not sure if this is only isolated to prepaid subscriptions. I hear that postpaid users are not as badly affected. Maybe that’s the premium one gets with a postpaid subscription. But with Globe heavily marketing their prepaid services such as Tattoo, SuperDuo and the like, they better be sure they have the capacity to service demand.

The bigger issue here is interconnection among the networks. I’m aware that telcos charge each other for each SMS or voice minute. But the charging framework has changed dramatically with the introduction of “unlimited” calling schemes, like the so-called “wireless landline” capability of mobile phones. If we’re going back to the dark ages of walled-garden communications, then we’re screwed. Remember the olden days when Smart subscribers could only text to Smart, and Globe within Globe?

Maybe this is just a honeymoon phase, and things will turn out better. I’m hoping that in the long run, interconnection among telcos would normalize. Things are getting cheaper and cheaper, anyway, and maybe they need to look for alternative business models (rather than charge interconnection fees), in line with the changing trends.

Last month I got so excited about the PLDT Wireless landine SIM that Jepoy sent me. I wanted to see for myself how “wireless landlines” fared. And what made PLDT Landline Plus attractive was that you can plug the SIM card into any GSM phone. No need to purchase a phone based on other technologies (i.e., CDMA).

However, my expectations were not met.

Signal was good. Registering for a monthly prepaid plan was simple enough. And voice quality is generally OK. My biggest gripe is the interconnection with other networks, namely BayanTel.

I know I’m considered to be a BayanTel loyalist, as I’ve often reviewed their services here, and I’ve been a BayanTel subscriber for more than ten years now. Our home landline (and that of my folks’) is BayanTel-provided, and guess what: with the PLDT wireless landline, calling BayanTel phones is really a bother. You would not only have to redial once, but in many cases, your call would never push through even after many tries. In my case I don’t even get a “network busy” signal or message. My phone just disconnects after trying to dial a Bayantel number.

Receiving calls from Bayantel and other landline networks is not a problem, though. I can receive calls fine from any landline. But it seems impossible for mobile phones try to call PLDT wireless landline numbers.

And the promised text messaging system is still not in place. Even PLDT-to-PLDT.

In mobility and telecoms, interconnectivity is the name of the game. I remember the mid 1990′s, when PLDT was still the dominant telecoms provider, interconnectivity was such a big issue. And the new entrants’ (e.g., Bayantel, Globe, Digitel) survival largely depended on whether their users could call PLDT users and vice-versa. This was the same when SMS started to become popular.

I’m not sure if the problem is on PLDT’s or Bayantel’s side, but if “wireless” landline providers want to succeed in the market, then they better work on this fast!

The _in_ thing in the Philippine telco market today is the wireless landline service. It’s somehow a mix of mobile phone service and landline service: the focus is on voice calls, but the service is usually not limited within a home or office.

There are various reasons why the Philippines is called the texting capital of the world. For one, text messaging is cheaper than voice calls (at least in the country). Secondly, Filipinos are known not to be a bit on the shy side when it comes to communicating. So we would rather text than call because the impersonal nature of texting serves as a veil between the communicants–one doesn’t have to worry about emotions or reactions. And for the forgetful ones like myself, I like keeping info (or agreements!) in my SMS inbox, so I won’t forget.

The recent upsurge of “wireless landline” services, however, goes to show that telcos are tapping that unused capacity of their networks in bringing about a new service–something I would call a “hybrid” one, but something that others may consider bordering on marketing gimmick.

Until recently, wireless landline services had to be exclusively subscribed-to, and required exclusive handsets. Some networks even use systems that are not same as the most widely used standard here, which is GSM. Bayantel, for one, uses CDMA. And until recently, using wireless landline services meant using a full-sized telephone apparatus, complete with the wired handset and the base with antenna. Portable, true. But one might look silly walking around at the mall speaking into what looks like a wired landline phone (at least that was what I thought when the service first came out a year ago).

But then the candybar-type handsets came to be popular, also. These were as portable as your usual mobile phone, but without the limitation of per-minute charged calls.

And for about a year after wireless landline services were introduced, these were usually postpaid plans with unlimited outgoing calls and SMS messages. But now the trend is going towards prepaid.

Hands on with PLDT’s wireless landline service

So I’ve wanted one for the longest time. My wife preferred the large apparatus type unit (if ever we were to go for one). But we didn’t feel the need for it yet. So it was way below our to-do / to-acquire list. But I got an offer from fellow blogger Jepoy, who was giving out prepaid PLDT Landline Plus SIM cards.

What was really great about the PLDT service was that it was no longer limited to specialized handsets. One could acquire a PLDT Landline Plus Prepaid SIM card, plug it into any GSM phone (Smart locked or unlocked), and voila! You have service!

I got my SIM card in the mail this afternoon (after much anticipation through the weekend) and tried it out. Here are some photos and my initial thoughts.

* The service functions much like a regular prepaid GSM subscription, albeit a basic one. There’s caller ID, but there are not much bells and whisltes (like wireless Internet, call waiting, call forwarding, etc.)
* Voice quality is good–I would expect this of the Smart network. It does have an echo sometimes, though.
* Coverage is good so far. I would expect this of Smart, too.
* Interconnectivity is good, so far. From my Bayantel landline at home, I could connect 100% of the time. Other reviewers, though, say that interconnectivity is iffy at about 75%.

I tried the SIM on my LG KU250 (the one stolen and recovered). And for one to use a “wireless landline” SIM on such a phone would be overkill, as Max Limpag would say. The data connectivity features of the phone would just be put to waste. So later this week I’m off to get myself a cheapo basic phone (much like what I use as my main phone).

I had no problems activating the SIM from my home office. Jepoy says you need to be in an area where the Smart cell site is already upgraded to handle PLDT wireless landline activation. No problem on my end, though.

Jepoy posts a comparison between two of the more popular prepaid wireless landline services here. I’m a loyal Bayantel user, so I initially wanted to get a Bayantel wireless landline phone. But then I would have to purchase a new handset altogether (which is incompatible with the rest of the country’s networks), and a dedicated SIM. The advantage, though, is that Bayantel has per-call charging, while PLDT’s is per-minute. But that’s for outgoing calls. Knowing how ingenious we can be at penny pinching, many users would probably just use the outgoing calls to ask the other end to call back.

Then again, as earlier mentioned, the telcos may have just found a really smart way to extend the use of their existing networks by marketing the service as a “wireless landline” service, when they could, in fact, just introduce cellular plans that are more focused on cheap voice calls rather than text.

I’ll be road testing this service soon, so watch out for more insights.