FREE TEXT in the Philippines?

[GOSPELofROCH]

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free call cguro but txt baratohon lng...daghan disadvantages if free and txt message. daghan samokan wahahaha =)

[hacxcena]

pwede mana FREE if gustuhon gyud but the TELCO's don't want na mawagtang ilang earnings na dako kaau. Ngano dili gud na before FREE raman gyud na ang text. And then ang ila infrastructure bisan pa dili sila mag hatag og sms naa naman na sa ila infra technology na gipalit kay bundle naman na.

[bluefairy]

services will be unreliable if free na ang text. di ka kasure if nadawat pa jud toh sa recipient and imong message. pwede nadayon himo-un excuse na "hala wala ko kadawat sa imong text". samok oi. di ko ganahan.

[macme]

lisod kau matinuod

[rainwax]

mura imposible au ni..

[omar50071]

Passion For Reason
Free SMS: Populism gone berserk
By Raul Pangalangan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:11:00 05/30/2008


MANILA, Philippines—If the government has indeed proposed to make “texting” services free of charge, then Malacañang’s faux populists must really be on a rampage. First, cheap electricity and now, free SMS. Boy, it doesn’t get any closer to the ground, any more widespread, or any more endearing to the desperate, destitute Filipino.
In the Philippines today, anyone who shouts “Free SMS!” will be hailed as a hero and can expect the applause of the gallery—and anyone who opposes it can easily be painted as the villain. Any demagogue can dangle the prospect of saving every last peso on consumable services like electricity or SMS.
And it is this precisely that I have warned about—the manipulation of populist sentiments for partisan posturing. The telecommunication giants are the next scoundrels, caught between the New People’s Army who burn down their cell sites and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s spokesmen who hold them hostage to an outraged rabble crying for blood. “Free SMS” resembles a shakedown, except that Mafiosos threaten with guns, and populist thugs terrorize with the people’s wrath.
Certainly there are many reforms that the telecom companies, or telcos, can undertake. When I spend time abroad, I notice that I can call cell phones from landlines without any extra charges, and vice-versa, and I ask: Why not at home?
Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza now suggests that SMS may fall outside the scope of the telcos’ franchise to transmit voice messages. The Supreme Court has long thrown out such distinctions, in an old case in which it said modern technology had reduced all “messages” generically into nothing more than the electronic impulses. Moreover, the secretary notes that abroad, SMS is merely a free “add-on” service. That is not viable in our country. Here it is the other way round. We overwhelmingly prefer text over voice, and it is voice that is the add-on to SMS.
In the United States, the bulk of the market is postpaid; people pay a fixed monthly bill, whether or not they use the service. Here, the “tingi” [piecemeal] market of prepaid cards means you pay only for what you use, or “pay-as-you-go.” “Free SMS” may be more viable for postpaid accounts that are bundled up in larger denominations. But prepaid cards come in smaller amounts, and “free SMS” may end up merely in prepaid cards that package less texting with more voice calls. Surely that will defeat the jingoistic clamor.
But that isn’t my real problem with the clarion call against the telcos. My worry, ridiculous as it may sound, is something that for this professor is simply abominable: They have the wrong political theory!
They bespeak the most mechanical notion of democracy, a Benthamite utilitarianism that conceives the public interest as nothing more than the aggregate of preferences by self-interested individuals, and reduces virtue to a “felicific calculus” of pleasure and pain. You’ve heard it often enough from politicians: “The greatest good for the greatest number.” Nice. Applause. Cheers. But misguided on several grounds.
Ask the kids and those adults who think like kids: What would you rather have—free books, or free “load” on your cell phone? Now you tell me: Will you just count their votes? Should we not instead debate on which are more important, reading or phone chats?
Next, sham populists make fantastic promises that we can’t afford in the end. Surely the public will welcome reduced taxes, but that same public will also need good roads and public services. How far can government reduce taxes without reducing its effectiveness? (Actually, we can do both if we reduce corruption—but that would mean starting at the very top, so well....)
Indeed, even if in the end we don’t get genuinely free SMS, Malacañang has already scored “pogi points” [brownie points] as the champion of the masses—at the expense of the demonized telecom giants. That will give the “pogi-fied” ruling syndicate a fresh mandate to get their cut from multimillion-dollar public works projects, and a clueless nation will simply look the other way.
It exploits our lack of a civic culture, the notion of a public good that towers above the gaggle of atomized egos and their pocketbooks. In other words, Filipinos might take to the streets if they lose P50/day for SMS, but they didn’t rebel when then-chairman Benjamin Abalos of the Commission on Elections offered Romulo Neri, then head of the National Economic and Development Authority, P200 million in grease money. Why? Because the P50 comes from their wallets, but the P200 million will come from businessmen who will just collect it from the National Treasury in the end. The public coffers are open season, my little pocket is sacred.
Finally, Malacañang’s latest cheap shot exploits the prevalent social distrust. The state, business, industry, academia—the poor think all of us are the enemy. They prefer the demagogue who demands for them more scraps from the rich man’s table, even if that demagogue eventually wants the entire groaning buffet for herself and her kin. They prefer a P50/day SMS freebie that is a sure thing, rather than long-term social visions that will anyway be betrayed.
Thus we cannot blame the common folk. They have been let down too often and too much. They like their goodies in the here and now, not in the future. They care for their own families, not the nation. To talk about the “future” and the “commons” assumes a leadership they can trust, a public sphere they can inhabit. Without that, the rational thing is simply to make the Faustian bargain and go for the sure but quick fix.
It is not for us to blame but rather to protect the Filipino from being conned yet again through personal ambitions that get a free ride on communal yearnings and insecurities. Remember that Hitler was freely and democratically elected by his own people. Tragic, but even that, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo can’t claim for herself.



Free SMS: Populism gone berserk - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

[raul]

da, another diversionary tactics sa gobyerno ni aroroy...

[JRG_959]

Free text is never going to happen again. Ever since 1994, texting has slowly become a part of everyday communication. It's quick, cheap, and you can keep whatever messages are sent and/or received without violating wiretapping laws and such.

SMS has become a very lucrative sector of the Telco industry. Telcos have profited from it since it became realized back in 1998/1999. That's how everything successful begins. Look at free anti-virus softwares, anti-spyware and the like. they started out free, gain the trust of potential customers, then cash is on them. IT's the natural course of events.

[ong76win2]

Free text is never going to happen again. Ever since 1994, texting has slowly become a part of everyday communication. It's quick, cheap, and you can keep whatever messages are sent and/or received without violating wiretapping laws and such.

SMS has become a very lucrative sector of the Telco industry. Telcos have profited from it since it became realized back in 1998/1999. That's how everything successful begins. Look at free anti-virus softwares, anti-spyware and the like. they started out free, gain the trust of potential customers, then cash is on them. IT's the natural course of events.

True bro. Asa musugot mga telcos e-free ang sms? Mawad-an sil ug kita.

[jjhen]

ay sus! unli n lng jud btaw ta kutob..naay free text once in a blue moon ra pod..naa p gani free call if maguba ilang monitoring..hehe...