SUN CELLULAR BUILDING 1,000 CELL SITES

Makati City, Feb. 27, 2003 -- Sun Cellular GSM, the mobile phone brand of Digitel Philippines, is aggressively building more base stations to expand its coverage throughout the country as it rolls out its service in April.

The third GSM player in highly competitve mobile phone market, Sun Cellular is targeting 1,000 cell sites this year to support the projected surge of subscribers.

Sun Celluar is equipped with the most modern technological advances in mobile phone GSM service to respond to the growing needs of the mobile user market.

Its leading partners include IBM, Hewlett Packard, Logica-CMG Worldwide, SchlumbergerSem and Alcatel, one of the world's leading telecom network vendors. Charles A. Lim, chief executive officer of GSM Business Unit, said they want to achieve a critical mass of one million subscribers within two years.

With its lower rates compared to Smart and Globe, Sun Cellular is expected to get a share of the mobile phone market and from new users.

"We have the most advanced and state-of-the-art cell sites which can cover 20 to 30 percent more areas against the older 1,800 frequency cell sites."

Upon its official launch in April, Sun Cellular would have a nationwide coverage on the first day. The network could accommodate one million subscribers on the first day and expects to expand to two million by the end of 2003.

"We're going after the bigger chunk of the market particularly those interested in superior value proposition," said Lim.

In terms of technology, "we have GPRS (general packet radio service) in our network. And we believe that the market is growing despite the two big players and we could add value to our subscribers."

In 2002, it was estimated that the mobile phone market has 15 million subscribers. "With competition and renewed interest of subscribers, we believed the market would continue to grow," said Lim.

He noted that loyalty to operators is not strong at this time. The penetration of cellular phone is much higher in urban centers like Metro Manila compared to the provinces. The services are tailor-fit to subscribers' usage and habit. "We will be coming up with several subscriber plans," said Lim.

"Consumers should have meaningful choices to address individual needs. And we these choices come superior value for money. I believed that cutting-edge technology must be utilized to put control back to consumers."

Lim pointed out that consumers should have the power to choose what is truly important. "To welcome subscribers into the Sun Cellular family, a Pioneer Program will be conducted from February 22 to March 9 where consumers would register and reserve slots at no obligation."

Consumers who sign up and eventually become a subscriber may enjoy the special Pioneer rates available to the first 100,000 subscribers. The special rates are applicable for six months from the commercial launch day of Sun Cellular.

The registered consumers have 45 days from the commercial launch day to purchase their reserved subscriptions.

Under the Pioneer Program rates, Sun Cellular would only charge R2 per minute on calls made between Sun subscribers and 50 centavos per text on Sun-to-Sun text.

For prepaid rates, Sun's intra calls is P2 against P8 to Globe and Smart. Sun's intra text is 50 centavos compared to P1 for Globe and Smart.

Sun's P6.50 intra calls is lower than Globe and Smart's R8. Sun has 100 free messages, higher than Globe's 50 free messages and Smart's 83 messages.

For postpaid rates, all voice calls can be charged to Sun Cellular's monthly service fee including IDD (international distance dialing) and NDD (national distance dialing) calls and international roaming.

For Globe and Smart, only local calls can be charged to the monthly service fee excluding IDD, NDD and international roaming.

Sun Cellular's postpaid Low Plan would have 38 to 124 free minutes, P2 for intra calls, 50 centavos for intra text, P6.50 for inter calls, P1 for inter text and 300 free messages. The regular rates for Sun Cellular are P4 to 6 intra calls, 50 centavos to P1 for intra text, P5 to P6.50 inter calls, P1 for inter text and 50 to 1,000 free messages.( By Edu H. Lopez, Bulletin)