ABS-CBN Mobile to launch postpaid services this year

MANILA, Philippines - Multimedia giant ABS-CBN Corp. will be launching postpaid services to subscribers of its mobile business within the year, a top company official said.

ABS-CBN Group chief financial officer Ronaldo Valdueza said ABS-CBN Mobile is set to launch its postpaid plans after successfully launching prepaid services last November after Super Typhoon Yolanda battered the Visayas region.

“ABS-CBN Mobile postpaid will be laucnhed within this year,” he stressed.

ABS-CBN chief finance officer Aldrin Cerrado, for his part, said ABS-CBN Mobile currently has more than 100,000 prepaid subscribers.

“It’s doing pretty well. Definitely we have over 100,000 subscribers,” he added.

He pointed out that the telecom provider, through its partnership with Globe Telecom Inc., now has nationwide coverage.

“People are testing on how to use ABS-CBN Mobile. It is very positive,” Cerrado said.

ABS-CBN become the third player in the capital-intensive industry dominated by Smart Communications Inc. of dominant carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), and Ayala-owned Globe.

ABS-CBN Mobile, a joint venture between ABS-CBN and Globe, gave away 100,000 subscriber identification module (SIM) cards to survivors of Yolanda to help them communicate with family and friends.

ABS-CBN has partnered with Globe as part of its efforts to boost the company’s media convergence strategy. Globe is in the middle of taking over cash-strapped Bayan Telecommunications Holdings Inc. of the Lopez family, which owns ABS-CBN.

The broadcast firm, through ABS-CBN Convergence, offers traditional telecom services such as voice calls and short messaging system (SMS) as well as wireless Internet to deliver content just like the two major players.

ABS-CBN is spending as much as P3 billion to acquire communications equipment and for working capital while utilizing the network of Globe nationwide.

Under the partnership, ABS-CBN would buy capacity from Globe on a wholesale basis as part of the network sharing agreement to deliver its content and to offer traditional telecoms services such as voice and SMS services on mobile devices.

A week after the partnership, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) gave ABS-CBN Convergence and Globe’s Innove Communications Inc. the green light to co-use network infrastructure and number blocks.

Globe has identified specific number blocks 0937-lXXXXXX, 0937-2XXXXXX, 0937-3XXXXXX for the co-use arrangement. Under the arrangement, Innove would allow the co-use by ABS-CBN of its local exchange numbers from among those that are available upon a subscriber’s use of service.

This is not the first time that ABS-CBN has ventured into new media territory in order to deliver its programs and other content to its viewers as it launched video-streaming site TFC.tv in 2000 and the recently launched free video streaming website iWanTV.