Captain's Log: SMART offers unlimited voice calls via Smartalk

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Captain's Log Supplemental Stardate -314482.34

Smart has joined the unlimited-call bandwagon by introducing Smartalk to all its 38 million prepaid and postpaid subscribers.

The service called "Smartalk" will be available today, June 26 until Sept. 30 this year. It is still unknown if Smart will continue offering this service after the promo period.

Smartalk does not require any changes in the subcriber's SIM or mobile number and can be enjoyed by Smart Buddy and Smart Gold subscribers.

Smart subscribers will be able to avail of the service by purchasing loads for unlimited calls which come in two denominations. The first is "Smartalk 100" which for P100 offers 5 days of unlimited calls to any subscriber on the SMART network anywhere in the country, at any time of the day.

Another variant, "Smartalk 500", offers 30 days of unlimited calls to any subscriber on the SMART network for only P500 – effectively reducing the cost to as low as P17 for a whole day of unlimited calling to any number within the country’s largest mobile subscriber base.

"With this new service, SMART subscribers all over the country need only one phone, one SIM, and one number, to be able to make unlimited, crystal-clear calls to over 38 million SMART numbers anytime, anywhere," said Orlando B. Vea, Chief Wireless Advisor of SMART, and also one of its founders.

"This is our way of helping out our subscribers in these difficult times and is our response to the government's call for more affordable telecommunications services," added Vea.

"This is the ultimate unlimited. Smartalk re-writes the rules in the way ‘unlimited’ mobile services are made available to Filipinos -- no other service offering provides unlimited, nationwide calling to a subscriber base as large as SMART’s, while assuring callers of crystal-clear signal quality anywhere in the country," said Danilo Mojica, head of SMART’s wireless consumer division.

SMART Buddy prepaid subscribers may avail of Smartalk through registration. A subscriber just needs to send Talk100 to 6400 for a Smartalk 100 package, or Talk500 to 6400 for a Smartalk 500 load. The payment for the package bought will be automatically deducted from subscriber’s prepaid load, and they just need to have a P1 maintaining balance.

They can also buy these Smartalk packages as a load from any of over a million SMART Load retailers all over the country.

Unfortunately, this is not as ultimate as what Mr. Danilo Mojica said. Instead of dialing directly the number, a subscriber need to enter a special access code to dial. When making a call using the Smartalk, subscribers must dial *6400 plus the 11-digit subscriber number being called, eg., *640009181234567.

And also, there's the question on how long will each call last. Their unlimited night calls lasts 5 minutes per call which is more annoying that their PLDT Landline Plus Prepaid's 10 minute limit. I hope they're longer than 10 minutes.

*Computer end log*

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THERE ARE 3 COMMENT(S) ON THIS POST:

Posted by Mark James Reyes on Friday, June 26, 2009 10:59:00 AM GMT+08:00:
This I like! Telcos competing to our advantage!

Posted by c_quijano on Monday, June 29, 2009 2:27:00 AM GMT+08:00:
So far, tried it and it works as advertised for Postpaid subscribers. No cutoffs happened. Not sure yet for prepaid...

Posted by Joshua on Monday, August 24, 2009 8:28:00 PM GMT+08:00:
@jepoy- i don't know if you're aware that the Consumer group Consumer Compalints Center, Inc. has filed a complaint with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) against Smart Communications, Inc.'s promo "Smartalk calling it "deceptive" and "confusing". Consumer Complaints Center President Vicente F. Gambito said his group has been receiving complaints about smartalk on the supposed poor service of the unlimited voice call promo smartalk. Mr. Gambito claimed the service bogged down during the first two weeks of implementation of smartalk and that the *6400 service was unavailable for reasons such as the "phone was unattended" or "phone is outside of the coverage area", but a connection could be made to an non Smartalk number using a regular call without the use of the prefix *6400 of smartalk. also, attempts to subscribe to Smartalk during the period only resulted in receiving delayed messages saying the promo was unavailable at the time the registration was made.

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