Competition escalates the mobile wars

A little competition is always good for the industry, be it mobile service providers or mobile phone manufacturers.

For instance, the Wireless Landline market that was started by PLDT and Bayantel has attracted the mobile phone service providers Sun and Globe. The metered pricing structure of PLDT has all but faded after repeated salvos of unlimited, unmetered service from all of its competitors.

I guess old habits die hard... but if PLDT does not abandon its old "monopoly" bad habits, it could very well find itself perched on a sinking ship.

These are times that the company has never seen before so the sooner they forget the outdated practices from the past, the better. Those only work when you are a virtual monopoly but those days are gone and thankfully will never come back.

However, there are encouraging signs from the company like the new SmartTalk promo which offers unlimited calls ala Sun.

Hopefully Globe will get on the bandwagon too but there is a little voice at the back of my head that says it might be a diversionary tactic again, to keep the Senate and NTC from burrowing through their records and exposing their profits which some insiders have described as astronomical. And that is credible given the P1 per text charge, and the millions of text messages sent in the Philippines everyday.

Going on to mobile phone manufacturers, for a long time, industry giants Nokia and Sony Ericsson grew complacent and the Koreans just came in and sort of took over a large chunk of the market. I mean when a Korean phone stages an upset of the CYBERSHOT line, well that is big news and a big headache for SE.

Same thing with Nokia, the Innov8 toppled the much vaunted N95 from its throne and the attacks have not stopped. Even LG was able to get in the game with several top rated handsets toppling old SE and Nokia handsets from their place in the "best buy" lists.

Much like the mobile service providers, Nokia then SE suffered from complacency and that lowering of the guard was enough let these upstarts get their foot in the door.

However, a recent slew of phones from Sony and Nokia have shown that the message has finally reached the decision makers and these phones look like they will at least regain some lost ground for their companie.

But as the previous posts show, the Koreans are constantly innovating and if this is what they can do in a recession, whatever can they do when their economy starts up again?

Unfortunately for the Nokia and SE, Korea was pegged by the international monetary authorities as one of the first economies that will recover and this will mean bigger challenges will be coming soon for them.

In the meantime, here then are some Nokia phones that are out to grab the market at the high end and mid end levels.

First up is the Nokia 6303, an upgrade to the 6300 which was a lackluster phone that had mostly sleek looks going for it.



Click here for the 6303 Classic review on Mobile Phones UK


Then there is the so called evolution of the 6500 Classic, the 6700 Classic. Now this phone is one that is catching my attention too so it seems that my technolust list is getting even more crowded. Oh well, the fun is in the lusting anyway..



Click here for the 6700 classic review on Mobile Phones UK



And lastly, here is a Nokia phone that is near the top of my technolust list, the N97.

I could go on and on about the features of this phone but I'll save that for another day. Just the mere images are enough to make a broke grown man cry.


Well the Americans and Koreans did get in some shots, pretty good ones at that.

First of is the Samsung S5600 Preston. Its supposed to be an upgrade to the Tocco Lite.



Read the Mobile Phones UK review of the S5600 here



And Apple of course will not be left out and its Iphone 3G S was reviewed too

Last but most certainly not the least, the LG Crystal was launched and its preliminary specs can be read also on Mobile Phones UK

Sun Double Unlimited User Review

I signed up for the DOUBLE UNLIMITED plan of Sun Cellular about a month ago. The deal goes like you sign up for two plans, a SunTel wireless landline AND a Sun Cellular Plan 350 pre loaded with 24/7 Call and Text Unlimited. For signing up, you get a Samsung C5212 Active Dual Sim phone for FREE.

First, a bit of disclosure I don’t work for Sun or any of its affiliates. I have been a loyal subscriber ever since they started. I have 3 lines, all with SUN because I feel they offer the best value in the industry. Had it not been for them, the Globe and Smart giants would be having a heyday charging P1 for text that used to be free. Yes sometimes its hard to call, but for those of us who remember how it was with Smart when it first launched here against Globe and Extelcom, it’s the bargain of the decade.

When I first got my Smart, it would take HOURS before you would get through. It was unbelievable. The phones for some time, were next to useless. Not to mention the mess these telecom companies made out of interconnection and making it difficult for competitors to call their networks. Believe me, Sun, for all its problems, has been and still is the best value for money and it’s a company that we all should sign up with to ensure that the industry will not be complacent and unscrupulous again.

Anyway let’s move on to how my Double Unlimited thing is going.

The Samsung C5212 was highly acclaimed in the preliminary write-ups on GSM Arena so I had great expectations for this unit.

In the interest of brevity, here are the Pros and Cons summarized:

SAMSUNG C5212

PROS:
- Nice form factor, bit large but fits well in your hand
- Good sized screen
- Polished interface relative to the old D900’s
- Easy SIM management
- Good ergonomics particularly the keyboard
- Excellent call handling unique to Samsung, you can blacklist SMS and/or calls.
- SMS alerts is now user customizable

CONS:
- Battery life is quite short
- Dual band only
- Has a problem acquiring and keeping signals
- Quality control issues, unit has two stuck pixels already
- Inadequate bundle, no memory card, no usb cable (which happens to be Samsung proprietary)
- No CD installer


Now about SUNTEL, first of all, it is a good deal. At least on paper.

You get a landline for P450 with unlimited call to numbers in the 02 service area. This beats out the metered service of PLDT and is dead even with the new Bayantel Wireless P450 plan.
However, the signal in quite a number of areas is unstable despite the reassurance of the SunTel Customer Service that the network is ok in that area. In those areas, it’s so hard to connect and when I do, I can hardly hear the other party and they can hardly hear me. It’s embarrassing particularly in view of the TV commercial about such network problems.

Furthermore, the SUNTEL/ SAMSUNG combination is unusable to me. The SAMSUNG could hardly get a signal in the areas I frequent and even in my house where I get strong SUN signals. What is aggravating is I get better reception and audio from my old Motorola Timeport! When I transferred the SUNTEL sim to my old phone, I was able to call from my work area where the SAMSUNG/SUNTEL combo could not.

Going further, I saw that the signal was still not that good despite being able to call so I transferred the SUNTEL Sim to my 3G Sony K810. To my surprise, it was able to get a 3G signal, a strong one at that. So after making a call and establishing that the connection was the best among the 3 phones, I decided to leave my SUNTEL sim in my K810.

So is the SUNTEL network ok now in the K810? It’s easier to make calls now but signal still needs a bit of improvement if they are to approach the usability level of the Bayantel Wireless which by the way was notorious for signal problems before but sad to say, its better. I know because we have one.

I think the network engineers should test the units they provide to SUNTEL users because landline users have more expectations from their units. We expect reliability and accessibility from our landlines otherwise its no different from an ordinary cellular service.

SUNTEL

PROS:
- Low price
- Good audio quality
- Flexibility since its sim based and will work with most phones with qualifications (see comments above)

CONS:
- Unstable signal
- Congested network in my area (Batasan Hills)
- Cannot connect with some food delivery hotlines

So in the end what would I recommend?

Well I would have said if you want a really good deal for a dual sim bundled with landline and cellular services, this is the way to go. But right now I can’t, because as I said, a good deal on paper fades when confronted with the reality of uselessness.

Most people who buy into this deal obviously are into one thing: COMMUNICATION. That is what I expected. I expect to be always (within reason) within reach of my clients and family. And this is what I don’t get from the SAMSUNG / SUNTEL combo.

The network is wanting and the phone reception needs to be addressed because its pathetic when a nearly 8 year old unit outperforms a newly released one in its primary task of making calls.

I have of course relayed my concerns to both Samsung and my local Sun shop. Samsung has relayed that they have neither the parts nor the software yet to service my phone so I can’t take it back yet for another month or so.

Sun on the other hand has not replied yet nor have I been informed about any testing being done in the problem areas I pointed out.

I would expect that the network would be reviewed as well as the suitability of the SAMSUNG C5212 for the SUNTEL network. For existing subscribers such as myself, I would expect that SUN would either recall the handsets to replace them with ones better matched to the network or maybe they can offer the Desktop Handsets such as the Huawei ETS-3023 at a discounted price to serve as base units for subscribers with signal problems in their homes. Actually I called asking about this but there are no units available for sale.

So in the end I suggest that potential subscribers to this service adopt my stand first which is wait and see. This post will be updated as feedback is received.