Manila, Philippines – In every recent survey or study on the Filipinos’ spending habits, prepaid cellphone load always comes up as one of the top items they spend on. Along with food, electricity, medicine, transportation, water and gas, prepaid load has become an essential in the daily lives of Filipinos.
In the country dubbed as the world’s text messaging capital, that’s not exactly surprising. Mobile phones are as pervasive as ever with almost everyone carrying at least a basic phone that can call and text, wherever, whenever. Smartphone penetration is also beginning to gain momentum.
It’s a good thing that local telcos like Smart Communications have made it easier for us to buy and manage our prepaid subscriptions. From offering just prepaid scratch cards with P300 as the cheapest denomination, they now have “tingi” electronic load for as low as Php 15 (P10 if you consider airtime buckets via e-load and P2 if you consider PasaLoad), widely available in sari-sari stores everywhere.
Also, there are now affordable load promos and combo buckets that can give you exactly the services you need, at the price you want.
Given all these affordable and efficient prepaid loading solutions available today, we can still do so much more to stretch our peso’s power. Here are some tips for the smart prepaid consumer to make the most of Observe your usage habits and subscribe to the promo package that best suits you. Do you text more than you call? Do you have more contacts subscribed to the network you use than the other networks? Do you use apps like Facebook or Instagram? Today’s prepaid promo packages are so customized based on one’s needs, usage habits and contacts. Carefully study what the promo includes and select the one that’s perfect for you.
If you’re using a smartphone, best to subscribe to packages that include data. Most smartphones are designed to perform best with “always on” connectivity. To maximize your phone’s capability while preserving your load, go for the complete bundles. (Example: Smart Unli Call & Text 25 has unlimited calls to SMART/TNT, unli texts to SMART/TNT/SUN, 50 all-net SMS + 15MB mobile internet). You get the reliability of calls and texts and with the data allocation, the fun of mobile web browsing and messaging apps even without WiFi.
Mind the MBs. If you choose volume-based prepaid data packages (priced depending on megabyte (MB) allocations), be aware of the file size of stuff you download and upload. Use data usage monitoring apps. There are also browsers that compress data (like Opera Mini) that can save you those precious bytes of data. It also helps to know your smartphone thoroughly so you can adjust some settings to control data activities (ex. Update apps only in WiFi areas).
Keep your circle within the same network. Most prepaid promos today packs more benefits in on-net services, meaning you save more when you contact those within the same mobile network. This gets even better with Smart as they have a couple of load offers that can be used to contact TRI-NET – the three biggest subscriber network in the country – Smart, Talk ‘N Text and Sun Cellular.
If you can, subscribe to the month-long offers as these can provide great benefits. Some packages are available in one-day, one-week or one-month variants.