Sun Cellular likely to exceed 10-M subscriber mark this year

Mobile phone brand Sun Cellular is likely to exceed its 10-million cellular subscriber base target this year as the difficult economic situation is forcing many Filipinos to look for mobile companies that offer cheaper call and text rates.

Digital Telecommunications Phils. Inc. (Digitel) president and CEO James Go said in an interview that the company currently has 6.5 million mobile subscribers and that for the past months, they have been experiencing net subscriber additions of about half a million a month.

Digitel owns and operates the Sun Cellular network.

The company has set a target of 10 million cellular subscribers by the end of this year, although industry observers said this can easily be surpassed if the trend of more Filipino subscribers migrating to networks that offer better unlimited call and text promos continues.

Go said Sun Cellular is rolling out its network at a strong pace and that by next year, they will have a better nationwide coverage — at the same coverage rate of mobile industry leaders Smart and Globe at over 90 percent of the country.

Sun Cellular expects to end 2008 with 4,000 cell sites under Phase 8 of its expansion program, as against 2,600 cellsites under Phase 7 of the network rollout.

Go also revealed that they will be soft launching next week their 3G (third generation mobile communications technology) service.

Digitel Mobile, a subsidiary of Digitel, is the fourth telecommunications company to offer 3G in the country. The three others include Smart Communications, Globe Telecom and Connectivity Unlimited Resource Enterprise (CURE) which has been acquired by Smart from businessman Roberto Ongpin.

“We will have the commercial launch of our 3G service very soon. But our 3G service will be far more technologically superior. Our 2G and 3G are seamless and we can offer more 3G applications,” Go said.

Also yesterday, he disclosed that Digitel’s wireless broadband service will be soft launched, with regular launch expected before the end of the year. “Our wireless broadband network will have the capacity to handle one million subscribers,” Go added.

On the one hand, Digitel’s wireline broadband service (DSL) currently has 100,000 subscribers from 50,000 as of end-2007.

Digitel is spending around $300 million (P12 billion) this year for the expansion of its cellular, fixed line and broadband networks.

The telecommunications company of the Gokongwei Group is allocating about P12 billion every year for the expansion of its wired and wireline network.

 “We are building a telecommunications network that is comparable, if not better, than those of the older players. Our voice and data technology are one of the best in the market. We are employing the latest technology. Our primary focus is building first-class network for 2G, 3G and broadband. We are migrating to an all-IP network,” Go earlier pointed out.