SAVE ON CALLS AND TEXTS IN THE PHILIPPINES

In the Philippines, there are only two dominant carriers serving the telecommunication needs of people in the country. These are the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and Globe Telecom, Inc. (GLOBE). They provide the Voice Calls and the Short Message Service (SMS) also known as Text Messaging to their subscribers under different brand names. PLDT has Smart, Talk ‘N Text (TNT) and Sun Cellular (SUN) while GLOBE has Globe, Touch Mobile (TM), ABS-CBN and Cherry Mobile.

Cellphone prepaid subscribers outnumber the postpaid ones and this post is intended for them. If not registered or Fully-Verified to promos, a prepaid subscriber is charged One (₱1.00) Peso per text message and Six Pesos and Fifty Centavos (₱6.50) per minute of call. The charges are slightly lower if you are calling or texting the same brand as yours meaning Smart to Smart, Sun to Sun, etc. However, the best way to save on calls and texts for prepaid subscribers is to avail of the so-called Load Promos being offered by the cellphone companies.

Load Promos, more popularly called “Unli-calls” and/or “Unli-Texts”, are primarily intended for use among the prepaid subscribers of brands owned by a carrier. Such that, promos by TNT are intended for unlimited calls and texts to Smart, Sun and TNT subscribers while TM promos are for Globe and TM subscribers. At best, the load promos have limited “texts to other networks”. They do not have calls to other networks.

In view of the above, it necessary for prepaid subscribers to have one SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card of the PLDT brands and another one of GLOBE brands to be used on now very common Dual-SIM cellphones. The image provided above shows the various prefixes currently in use by the cellular companies in the Philippines. If not sure on which carrier owns the SIM you will text or call, check it first using the above chart. That way, you can be sure that you avail of the “Unli” promos of your cellular service provider.