Philippines' wireless service provider Smart Communications was cited as the <u>Mobile Operator for the year 2008, in the 5th Asian Mobile News Awards in Singapore</u>, a leading cellular industry magazine in Asia which organizes the annual awards for the top mobile operators and handsets in Asia. It was the second time that SMART was recognized as the country's mobile operator of the year, having first received the award during the Asian Mobile News Awards 2005. 

SMART, mobile communication arm of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. Group (PLDT) has 32 million subscribers on its GSM network as of end-December 2007,equivalent to approximately half of the Philippine cellular market share. It operates a nationwide cellular network and a satellite phone service. It also has the most extensive and modern digital GSM network and infrastructure in the country, covering over 99% of the population.

SMART  has built a reputation of innovation, having introduced world-first wireless data services, including mobile commerce services such as Smart Money, Smart Load and Smart Padala. It also offered Smart Link, a prepaid satellite telephony service and 3G service. Another subsidiary, Smart Broadband, Inc. offers a wireless broadband service, Smart Bro.

As end-June 2007, Smart's GSM network consists of 100 switches and 100,000 base stations, over 2 of which are equipped with wireless broadband capability. Smart also has over 23 3G base stations nationwide. Smart ended the first quarter with 20.6 million subscribers while Talk N Text, a GSM prepaid service that offers the best value-for-money with more affordable voice rates and text packages and reasonably priced SIM cards and mobile phones - backed by Smart's nationwidest network, had 11 million and its wireless service revenues grew 8% to P22.5 billion.

 The Philippines' success in promoting the usage of mobile phones is attributed to the introduction of various innovations in cellulars technologies and business models. The introduction of prepaid services in the 1990s which Smart has aggresively promoted has opened the door to just everyone - students, housewives, employees, blue collar workers, farmers, fishermen and families of overseas workers. Prepaid services were further enhanced with Smart introduced micro-tops through electronic loads or Smart Load in 2003. The sachet size of airtime tops in Smart Load, now as low as P10 per load has made mobile phone services affordable for many more low-income subscribers. At the same time, e-load has helped drive down the cost of providing mobile services, thus enabling Smart to profitably serve the low-income market.

In its 15 years of operation, Smart has led the way in putting mobile phones in the hands of more Filipinos than was previously thought possible by virtually  all industry analysts. In the late 1990s, the conventional wisdom industry analysts was that mobile phones penetration in the Philippines could not exceed 2025 percent on account of the country's relatively low per capita income. By end-2007 however, over 60% of Filipinos had become mobile phone users. Before the telecommunication industry was deregulated in the mid-1990s, only 2% of the population had access to a phone. Now, 6 out of 10 Filipinos have access to a phone as mobile phone operators reinvested most of their fat profits in technology and infrastructure.

 In the meantime, texting - a popular service of phone companies and a favorite pass-time of about 60 million Filipinos who own phones has been the focus of the transportation and communication department lately.

Just recently, Smart launched Umobile, the first advertising funded- mobile service in Asia that offered free minutes to the youth market last June. Wow! Its very inspiring to say that text should be free. It will roll out its umobile service nationwide this month with P100 worth of free monthly load to be given to every subscribers, who will also receive a 50-centavo load for every ad sent to his or umobile phone. Subscriber can also avail of mobile services such as a call and text for free and they will get rewards by simply receiving those mobile adds. The service will be the first of its kind in Asia and the second in the world, after Blyk in the United Kingdom. It will initially be on a prepaid subscription model. Of the <u>estimated 60 million total mobile phone users in the country, about 98% are prepaid users.</u>

Last month, Smart has made partnership with Yahoo, to provide users search results on mobile phones' default search option.

Indeed, the Philippines is a unique consumer market for mobile services which other countries are now trying to learn from. SMART  and other mobile operators/companies are coming out with packages that will effectively bring down the price of voice call and text messaging to lower than prevailing rates. Well, they simply do their bit in helping ease the burden of high prices.