Pilipino Telephone Corporation
Encyclopedia
The Pilipino Telephone Corporation , commonly known as Piltel, is a holding company of the PLDT Group for its venture into the electricity distribution industry. Previously, it was one of the mobile and fixed-line telephone service providers in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

. Piltel is 99.5%-owned by Smart Communications
Smart Communications
Smart Communications is a wholly owned mobile phone and Internet service subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company .On June 30, 2010 the company reported that it had over 45 million cellular subscribers.-Brands:...

, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company
The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company commonly known as PLDT, is the largest telecommunications company in the Philippines. PLDT is also the largest company in the Philippines, ranked 1138th in the April 2009 update, and 1080th in the April 2010 update, of Forbes' Global 2000 list...

 (PLDT). The remaining 0.5% of Piltel's shares is owned by the Filipino investing public.

History

Piltel was incorporated with limited liability on July 18, 1968. It started its business by providing landline services in eight cities and municipalities in the Philippines: Baguio City, General Santos, Olongapo, Subic, Puerto Princesa, Digos, Boac and Masbate.

In March 1991, Piltel started offering cellular phone services branded Mobiline, using the AMPS
Advanced Mobile Phone System
Advanced Mobile Phone System was an analog mobile phone system standard developed by Bell Labs, and officially introduced in the Americas in 1983, Israel in 1986, and Australia in 1987. It was the primary analog mobile phone system in North America through the 1980s and into the 2000s...

 standard. In August 1993, Piltel launched it paging business called Beeper 150. In July 1995, Piltel had its shares listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange.

By 1996, Piltel dominated the market with 42% market share. However, in that same year, cellular fraud or cloning became rampant in the Philippines. This prompted Piltel to upgrade its AMPS
Advanced Mobile Phone System
Advanced Mobile Phone System was an analog mobile phone system standard developed by Bell Labs, and officially introduced in the Americas in 1983, Israel in 1986, and Australia in 1987. It was the primary analog mobile phone system in North America through the 1980s and into the 2000s...

 network to the CDMA
Code division multiple access
Code division multiple access is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with the mobile phone standards called cdmaOne, CDMA2000 and WCDMA , which are often referred to as simply CDMA, and use CDMA as an underlying channel access...

 standard. It was also in the same year that Executive Order No. 109 was implemented, thus, Piltel had to expand its landline services to unserved and underserved areas in southern and western Mindanao.

Unluckily, in July 1997, a financial crisis that started in Thailand spread across neighboring countries in Asia. This, together with rising inflation, the cost of upgrades and expansion, loss of wireless subscriber confidence because of the cloning problem in the previous year, and lack of subscriber interest in the newly installed Mindanao landline network because of the financial crisis; started to weigh heavily on the finances of Piltel.

On top of it, intensified competition started eating into Piltel's wireless market subscriber share. In 1998, competitors using the GSM standard started promoting the use of SMS, which has since become the most preferred communication method of the Filipinos. Before Piltel had the chance to add SMS facilities to its CDMA network, it was already deep into the red with Php4.1 billion worth of losses as of end-1998.

In November 1999, Piltel's management decided to stop investing in its AMPS/CDMA networks. Moving forward, management signed a facilities-sharing agreement with competitor Smart Communications
Smart Communications
Smart Communications is a wholly owned mobile phone and Internet service subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company .On June 30, 2010 the company reported that it had over 45 million cellular subscribers.-Brands:...

 to be able to provide wireless services using Smart's GSM network. By April 2000, Piltel launched its GSM brand, Talk 'N Text
Talk 'N Text
Talk 'N Text is a cellular service, based in The Philippines, which belongs to Smart Communications. This is formerly known as Mobiline and Phone Pal. By April 2000, Piltel launched its GSM brand, Talk 'N Text. Piltel also reported 16,590,737 subscribers to its GSM brand, Talk 'N Text, before its...

.

Since then, most of Piltel's employees have been absorbed by Smart Communications
Smart Communications
Smart Communications is a wholly owned mobile phone and Internet service subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company .On June 30, 2010 the company reported that it had over 45 million cellular subscribers.-Brands:...

. Likewise, the management of its wireless business have also been outsourced to Smart Communications
Smart Communications
Smart Communications is a wholly owned mobile phone and Internet service subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company .On June 30, 2010 the company reported that it had over 45 million cellular subscribers.-Brands:...

. The Beeper 150 network was already shut down, and its landline business was sold to PLDT on June 4, 2008.

As of July 29, 2009, Smart Communications
Smart Communications
Smart Communications is a wholly owned mobile phone and Internet service subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company .On June 30, 2010 the company reported that it had over 45 million cellular subscribers.-Brands:...

 completed its tender offer to buyout most of Piltel's other minority shareholders, thereby raising its ownership to 99.5%. On August 17, 2009, Piltel completed the transfer of its wireless businesses to Smart Communications
Smart Communications
Smart Communications is a wholly owned mobile phone and Internet service subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company .On June 30, 2010 the company reported that it had over 45 million cellular subscribers.-Brands:...

.

Subsidiaries

The following are Piltel's wholly owned subsidiaries:
  • Telecommunication Service Providers (Telserv) - Phils : involved in operator services
  • Piltel International Holdings Corporation (PIHC) - British Virgin Islands : involved in the issuance of bonds convertible into common shares of Piltel
  • Piltel (Cayman) Ltd. - Cayman Islands : involved in bringing into the debt restructuring plan holders of Piltel's convertible bonds

Wireless

Today, Piltel no longer a wireless services operator. Before the transfer, Piltel used its AMPS/CDMA networks to lease out telephone lines to a few corporate subscribers, and has decommissioned all but six of its AMPS/CDMA cellsites. Likewise, Piltel also reported 16,590,737 subscribers to its GSM brand, Talk 'N Text, just before the transfer.

Philippine area code assignment

Piltel used the 912 area code for its AMPS/CDMA service. However, it is now used for the Talk 'N Text brand, which was transferred to Smart Communications
Smart Communications
Smart Communications is a wholly owned mobile phone and Internet service subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company .On June 30, 2010 the company reported that it had over 45 million cellular subscribers.-Brands:...

.

Competition

Piltel's main competitors were Smart Communications
Smart Communications
Smart Communications is a wholly owned mobile phone and Internet service subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company .On June 30, 2010 the company reported that it had over 45 million cellular subscribers.-Brands:...

, Globe Telecom
Globe Telecom
Globe Telecom , commonly known as Globe, is a telecommunications company in the Philippines. Globe provides mobile, fixed line, and broadband Internet services.- History :In 1928, Congress passed Act No...

 and Sun Cellular
Sun Cellular
Digitel Mobile Philippines, Inc., is a mobile telecommunication service provider in the Philippines doing business as Sun Cellular. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Digital Telecommunications Philippines, or Digitel. Digitel is in turn owned by the JG Summit Group with a minority stake...

 in the mobile
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

 market. It previously competed with carriers such as Digitel
Digital Telecommunications Philippines
Digital Telecommunications Phils., Inc. , commonly known as Digitel, is the second-largest fixed-line and the third-largest mobile telecommunications company in the Philippines...

 and Bayan Telecommunications
Bayan Telecommunications
Bayan Telecommunications, Inc. is a telecommunications company serving areas in Metro Manila, Bicol and local exchange service areas in the Visayas and Mindanao regions combined cover a population of over 25 million, nearly 33% of the population of the Philippines.Its operating units in the...

 (Bayantel) in the fixed-line market.

Sports

Piltel owns the Talk 'N Text Tropang Texters of the Philippine Basketball Association
Philippine Basketball Association
The Philippine Basketball Association , is a men's professional basketball league in the Philippines composed of 10 company-branded franchised teams. It is the first and oldest professional basketball league in Asia and the second oldest in the world after the NBA...

.

Official

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