Globe, Smart, and Sun provides Typhoon Yolanda victims with 25 SMS daily for 5 days

Photo: NOAA/AFP/Getty Images

In a response to the damage, catastrophe, and difficulties in communications brought about by Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda here in the Philippines), the three mobile network operators in the country — Globe, Smart, and Sun — have jointly agreed to provide customers and victims in typhoon-hit areas in Visayas with 25 SMS daily starting tomorrow until November 17. These SMS can be used to send local and international messages. This service will be available in Leyte, Samar, Cebu, Aklan, Antique, and Capiz.

Globe and TM customers can send BangonPinoy to 8888 to avail of the free service. Customers on Smart, Sun, and Talk ‘N Text will automatically receive the credits at the start of each day.

The massive howler crashed ashore in the Leyte and Samar provinces on Friday morning, which is feared to have left up to 10,000 people dead. The typhoon packed winds of up to 315 kilometers per hour with gusts of up to 385 km/h, making it one of the strongest to have ever formed in the planet.

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Sun Cellular offers unlimited browsing thru Opera Mini at just P15

Sun Cellular and browser maker Opera has announced a partnership to offer affordable unlimited browsing plans to its prepaid customers.

The newly-announced BrowseOn Opera packages, which only works with Opera Mini, offers unlimited browsing at very affordable rates. The daily package only costs P15, while the 7-day package costs P80, the 15-day package P160, and the monthly package just P299. The packages should be beneficial to those who are still using feature phones that can’t take advantage of full-fledged browser as Opera Mini compresses webpages to load them faster.

To prevent users from abusing the cheap packages, Sun has put a per-file download and upload limit of 15MB. What this means is basically, you can still download and upload as many files as you want as long as each file’s size is no more than 15MB. For instance, you can upload 30 2MB photos, or you can save let’s say 20 5MB songs.

To avail of the packages, simply text OPERA15 (1 day), OPERA80 (7 days), OPERA 160 (15 days), or OPERA299 (30 days) to 247. You can download the Opera Mini browser designed for Sun at wap.suncellular.com.ph. Opera Mini works with most of all mobile platforms (Nokia S40, Symbian, Android, iOS, BlackBerry, etc.).

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Alcatel and Sun Cellular launches the One Touch Idol Ultra for P14,990

Alcatel and Sun Cellular yesterday announced the arrival of their latest smartphones and tablets, one of which is the Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra which made a cameo on Iron Man 3 (the movie is splendid by the way).

The One Touch Idol Ultra, which was announced at CES last January, was officially recognized as the thinnest smartphone at just 6.45mm. At just P14,990, it runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and packs a 4.7-inch HD AMOLED screen with Gorilla Glass and oleophobic coating which makes it oil and fingerprint-resistant. It features an 8 Megapixels camera and a 1.3 Megapixel one on the front. Both are capable of recording 720p HD videos.

Hardware-wise, the One Touch Idol Ultra sports a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. To be honest, I was hoping for a quad-core processor for the price. You’ll also get 16GB of storage on board. There’s Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi b/g/n, which are now pretty standard, but you won’t get HSPA+ here. The maximum supported speed is just 7.2Mbps.

The Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra will also be offered by Sun Cellular for free on Plan 999 and it will come with unlimited data, Sun texts, and 4 hours of Sun calls. Pretty nice deal if you ask me.

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Google may be launching carrier billing for Play Store in the Philippines soon

Android users and fans alike may soon have a reason to rejoice. We have just discovered that search-giant Google may soon launch the ever useful carrier billing as an additional payment method on the Google Play Store.

As you can see in the Google Play Store screenshot above, there is now an option that allows you to bill the purchase on your mobile phone bill or deduct it from your prepaid credits, although the option itself is not yet functional. This should be truly beneficial for those who do not have a credit card and want to legally own apps and games for their devices, especially when you consider how easy and more convenient it would be to buy contents in the future — you just go to a tindahan and reload your phone and that’s it. Compare that to other solutions like using prepaid cards issued by banks, which is very hassle.

Moving on, it is worth noting that the carrier billing option will be available to all networks in the Philippines, that is, Globe Telecom, Smart Communications, and Sun Cellular. Lastly, Google says you need to be using mobile data connection and not Wi-Fi to use carrier billing.

Here’s hoping that Google will flip the switch for this shortly.

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Sun Cellular offers the BlackBerry Z10 at Plan 1,799, coming March 19

Sun Cellular has officially acknowledged that they will be having the BlackBerry Z10 too, and it looks like they have some nice deals up their sleeve.

The BlackBerry Z10 will be offered at Plan 1,799 without any cash-outs at all. It will include unlimited calls and texts to Sun, unlimited data, unlimited local landline calls, 250 texts to other networks, and 60 international minutes to 10 countries.

That doesn’t sound bad at all. You can now order your Z10 from Sun although it will be only released on March 19.

The BlackBerry Z10 was officially announced last March 6. The company stated that the device will be available on the country’s three carriers, including Sun Cellular, Smart, and Globe.

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BlackBerry Z10 arrives in the Philippines for P29,990

BlackBerry Philippines announced on March 6 the local availability of the Z10 in the country. It features a 1.5GHz dual core processor with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and a microSD card slot that supports up to 32GB of additional storage.

The BlackBerry Z10 will have an SRP of P29,990 and will come in black and white colors. You can reserve yours now by going to buybb10.com.

BlackBerry Z10 Specifications and Features
4.2-inch LCD display with 1280x768 resolution at 356ppi
1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor
8 Megapixels autofocus camera
Full 1080p HD video capture at 30fps
2 Megapixels front-facing camera
16GB internal memory, expandable by 32GB using microSD
2GB RAM
1,800mAh battery capacity
GSM - 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
3G/HSPA+ - 850/900/2100 MHz
LTE - 800/900/1800/2600 MHz
Gyroscope
Compass
Accelerometer
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
BlackBerry 10 OS

The BlackBerry Z10 will be available in the Philippines starting March 19. The country’s three carriers — Smart, Globe, and Sun, will also carry the new device on their postpaid plans.

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Sun Cellular introduces Name Ur Number SIM, lets you pick your own phone number

Here’s a rather new and unique offering from Sun Cellular, the Name Ur Number SIM card.

The Sun Cellular Name Ur Number SIM card is the first of its kind in the country. It is basically just an ordinary prepaid SIM card which does not come with a predefined phone number. Instead, you will get to choose your own phone number when you activate it.

Details are scarce at the moment as the release has been put on hold by the carrier but an initial batch of SIMs is already available at the Sun Shops and other stores. Sun Cellular says customers will be able to choose their own 3 to 6 digit phone number, provided that it is still available. The phone numbers will start with 0942-8XX-XXXX, 0943-8XX-XXXX, or 0943-9XX-XXXX.

The Sun Cellular Name Ur Number SIM card retails for P59 and it comes with the usual free SMS and minutes.

I personally think this should become the standard for all SIM cards on all carriers. Instead of producing SIM cards with predefined phone numbers, users should just be able to choose from a series or by their own when they activate it. How about you? What do you think about this new offering by Sun Cellular?

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Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 will be also available on Smart, Globe, and Sun Cellular

EXCLUSIVE!

A little birdie told me that the freshly launched Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 will also make its way to the country’s three carriers aside from being sold unlocked and contract-free.

That’s right. Smart, Globe, and Sun Cellular will launch Samsung’s latest flagship tablet and phone hybrid in the country, and for sure, they will bundle it with their respective plans. This makes sense as the three already offer the Samsung GALAXY S III. All we can do is to wait but hopefully they will reveal more info not too long from now. The Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 retails for P32,990.

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Winners of Sun Cellular-Mister Jonjon Giveaway

Our giveaway of Sun Cellular items has already ended yesterday and we’ve already picked the winners! The winners are…

Jaff Grabriel - Sun Broadband Wireless E153 Stick + Sun Prepaid SIM
John Cabredo - Sun Power Text Unlimited 200 Call Card
Leo Rances Garcia - Sun Broadband 100 3 Days Unlimited Internet Card
Jhay Ramones - Sun Cellular Call & Text Unlimited 100 Card

Congratulations! Please wait for our e-mail later today for the prize details.

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Sun Cellular-Mister Jonjon Giveaway

We have another mini-giveaway starting now and this time I'm giving away some of the items that I got from the Sun Cellular bloggers' meetup last March.

Up for grabs are the following: a Sun Broadband Wireless stick along with a Sun Prepaid SIM, a Sun Text Unlimited 200 card, a Sun Broadband 100 card, and a Sun Call & Text Unlimited 100 card. The Sun Broadband stick is the Huawei E153 capable of getting speeds up to 3.6 Mbps. I've only used the stick once for testing and I don't use it anymore since I already have my own.

I'll make it easy this time for you to enter in this giveaway. Simply follow the instructions in the box below and you're in.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Contest will start today, June 11 and will end on 12 PM, June 25, 2012. I will announce the winner in a separate blog post.

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Sun Power Text Unlimited 200 Will Save You Thousands of Pesos

Unlimited texts, 240 minutes of calls, and 500 SMS to all networks for just P200 per month? Where on earth would you find that kind of deal? Well, you won't actually find it on earth. But you will, on Sun.

I mean, on Sun Cellular.

The Sun Power Text Unlimited 200 - or TU 200, has been already out for a while now. And you should really try it! I'm sure your wallet will really feel the difference with this offer. You'll save more than thousand bucks per month. Let me show you how.

Let's say I send 1000 texts to my friends on Sun, 500 texts to my other friends on other networks, and make 240 minutes of calls to my family every month, I will instantly lose P2,320!

Why don't you click the photo to view it in full size? :D

But with Sun's Power Text Unlimited, you'll only have to pay P200! Now that's a lot of savings. If you make that same amount of texts and calls, then why don't you try this offer?

The Sun TU 200 can be availed thru prepaid cards, via Sun Xpress Load, or by texting TU200 and sending it to 247.

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