I remember during the early days of SunCellular's unlimited offering, most of my financial analyst friends gave SunCellular a slim chance of making it big with their unlimited offering.  Sun Cellular's financial standing will definitely bleed is what they all said.  Given the nature of mobile users, they will really use it to the hilt.  Users will send as many text messages as possible and will stay on the line until the sun shines (telebabad).  But I said that's the whole idea of the offer, convince users to switch to SunCellular because of it's unlimited service.  Unused bandwidth is much worst than an abused network.  Perhaps SunCellular was able to make some headway for sometime that's why Smart and Globe reacted with their own unlimited service.

SunCellular increased their unlimited pricing which I think is but normal.  Until I got a message from a reader named Jocelyn regarding her son's experience with the service of SunCellular.  I am printing her message in full:

The Sun Cellular unlimited call and text is a very good offer for all Sun users but lately, Sun Cellular has discontinued my son's unlimited service due to what they termed "overabused or overused". My son loaded a P350 24/7 unlimited call and text that is good for 1 month but it only lasted less than a week. They discontinued it because it was overabused "daw". Again he loaded a P100 24/7 call and text good for one week and it lasted only for only 3 days. I don't know why Sun Cellular do this.  They say that it is unlimited but with what we have experienced their 24/7 unlimited have limits now.

I emailed Jocelyn to ask for more info, and I found out that she was not the only one who experienced this abnormal termination.  Jocelyn shared another user's experience:

I'm using Sun txt/call unlimited 100php load, and my account is supposed to expire Dec 31. However my unlimited feature was cut-off lunchtime today. I cannot call nor text but I can receive call and txt. I went to the nearest sun cell customer care, and they made an incident report.  The person that attended don't know what they are doing. They're giving out of the blue reasons why my service was cut off. After giving my incident report #, I did call their hotline 200.  The lady who attended my call explained that my service was cut-off because I went beyond their limit of usage. She's referring to the length of calls and number of msgs I sent. I asked her who is determining this, and what is your limit that you can say I went beyond the max. limit of usage. Because as far as I know it says in your promo that it is unlimited 24/7 call /txt.

I asked her if they have any other interpretation of the word unlimited 24/7? She said that yes it's unlimited but they're setting some limit to the usage. So I replied to her, why are you not
informing your consumer about this? is it a scam? You're telling everybody that it is 24/7 but actually it's not. You got any hidden agenda.  When asked if what is the solution to my problem. The lady said I need to reload.  Ok I will re-load, but how sure am I that this time I won't go beyond the limit? and how sure am I that it won't be cut before my expiration date. She said I need to minimize my usage. so I told her minimize to what level. How many hrs of call? how many msgs? She replied she can't answer because it is done automatically by their machine etc, etc.

Initially I thought this was just or an isolated case or a system glitch until my very own daughter experienced the same.  My daughter loaded a 150php unlimited text only last Dec. 31, 2005 which should last her a month, unfortunately it was also cut-off last January 7, 2006 - a little over a week.  She called Sun's hotline 200 and the lady said that her number and credits are still active but their system has terminated it.  My daughter was asked to go to their Sun office to rectify the mistake. 

What does SunCellular mean by "OVERUSED" and "OVER-ABUSED"?  According to Webster, Unlimited means Having no restrictions or controls; Having or seeming to have no boundaries or infinite; Without qualification or exception; absolute.  Overused means To use to excess;  Excessive use.  Abused means To use wrongly or improperly; misuse.  No entry was found for "Over-Abused".  Perhaps over-abused means Exceeding the excessive usage.  If we go by the definition of terms, the term overused and over-abused are the exact opposite of the word Unlimited.

The reply of the lady to the second complainant that "Yes it's unlimited but they're setting some limit to the usage" is totally unacceptable and mind-boggling.  We better not use SunCellular's mobile dictionary if any as they seem to have their own interpretation of words.  And the solution that my daughter got was another one for the books.  Her number and credits are active but she has to go to their Sun office to rectify the mistake?  What's the use of computerization then?  They could have just send a notification to their administrators and it should have corrected the problem right there and then.  But no, they have to ask their users to go personally to their office that leaves us all asking - WHY?  Why is this happening and why do you still have your hotline number if this is the case?

Still I would like to believe that this is a system glitch but the replies the users are getting tells me otherwise.  The overused and overabused reply says it all - Sun is setting limits to their unlimited service and they're aware that this is happening.  If so, then why not tell the user the limits?  Come out clean and be honest to your users.  Or change your name to "Sun 24/7 Limited" service.  Terminating the service without prior notice and by being dishonest to increase sales perhaps is a poor, tactless and insensitive strategy. 

We may get some complains about this incident but majority of our users will just shrug it off and reload again which I am sure SunCellular is very much aware of.  Jocelyn's message proves this.  After the termination, her son reloaded again.  She only complained after the same incident happened again.  Sun should realized that people use Sun's service because they were promised something that could save them money and mobile users spend their last cent just to be able to communicate, so that means every text count for them.  Sun made a commitment to their subscribers, if they want to retract from that commitment then just say it.  Why is SunCellular doing this?  Cash strapped?  Poor infrastructure?  Sabotage?  I don't really know.

I emailed SunCellular about this incident and even included Jocelyn's message, but I got no response.  I even called their landline number and mobile number but no one is answering. Maybe it was cut-off too.  A deafening silence makes someone doubt that there must be something wrong with the company.  Ignored calls and emails can be interpreted as a way of hiding the truth which Sun can ill afford now.

I am renewing my call to SunCellular, especially to Lance, Charles and to my other friends there at Sun to respond to this incident so that we may clear things out - your subscribers deserves an explanation.  If not, you may end up having an unlimited service to a limited number of users or no users at all.  I don't think that would be a great site to see.

To all our dear readers, share me your stories if you have experienced the same to techtvhost@yahoo.com.  Am logging off.  Stay cool always and God Bless us all!

**********

Announcement: Attend the Powertips 2006 "Security Secrets and Strategies" conference on March 16, 2006 at the Grand Ballroom of Dusit Hotel Nikko.  Tickets are available at all SM TicketNet outlets or call 911-5555.  You can also register online at www.infochat.com.ph.

For your questions, comments, suggestions, press releases and stories, please e-mail techtvhost@yahoo.com or visit www.infochat.com.ph for more articles.