Sun Cellular introduces Anti-Bill Shock system

MANILA, Philippines - Riding on the heels of a remarkable increase in its wireless broadband subscriber base in 2011, Sun Cellular is the first to use in the market a new system that will save its postpaid subscribers from paying exorbitant fees from unwanted internet usage or even excessive calls to landlines and other networks.

Dubbed the Anti-Bill Shock Plan, this new and innovative billing plan can be availed of by postpaid wireless, BlackBerry, mobile internet, mobile landline, and wireless broadband subscribers through add-on products to avoid incurring excessive subscription fees brought about by inter-network account usage, over use of broadband wireless subscription or unwanted Internet mobile connectivity charges. For example, Sun Cellular’s Broadband Wireless Anti-Bill Shock Plan, first introduced in September 2011, affords its customers worry-free internet surfing to their heart’s content. Sun’s broadband subscribers grew by more than 70 percent year-over-year. From 263,600 subscribers in 2010, it rose to over 452,000 by end of 2011.

“We take pride in being the first telecommunications company to introduce such a system that protects our customers’ interests,” says Ricky Pena, senior vice president for Postpaid Marketing and Broadband Business of Sun Cellular. In fact, other telcos are following suit in using this latest innovation. Sun Cellular was also the first to introduce call and text unlimited plans that made it the first carrier to reach one million postpaid subscribers in 2010.

According to Pena, the Anti-Bill Shock system is a solution developed by Sun Cellular to help subscribers stay within their budget. “Sun Cellular has always focused on offering our customers the best value for their money and our Anti-Bill Shock plans are no exception. At the same time we heed the call of the National Telecommunications Commission to ensure that the subscribers be billed only for the services they really intended to use,” Pena adds.

Pena explains that the Anti-Bill Shock billing system works after the subscriber has consumed all inter-network SMS, mobile internet, and wireless broadband credit allocations provided for in his subscription plan. Once the subscriber consumes the allocation of his plan, he is then charged the regular usage rates. The Anti-Bill Shock system puts on a cap on the billing charges but the customer can continue using the service. Once that threshold is reached, the subscriber will only be billed the maximum amount of the Anti-Bill Shock Add-on Plan, regardless of the actual usage of the subscriber for that particular billing period.

He added that subscribing to this add-on service is also easy as they just need to call in the Sun Cellular Customer Service hotline 200 (toll-free from any Sun Cellular mobile phone) to subscribe.

Sun Cellular is a member of the PLDT Group.