The Catanduanes Tribune


Vol. XX No. 46	January 24, 2001	Virac, Catanduanes

Headlines

Major Developments

The Catanduanes Tribune

Rawis, Virac

Catanduanes,

Philippines - 5001

Tel. No.:

   (052) 811-1267

   or 811-2640

Fax No.:

   (052) 811-1267

E-mail:

Cattribune@cs.com



Publisher-Editor

Edwin A. Gianan

Advertising-

Circulation

Manager

Simeon G. Cueno

Web Master:

Richard T. Revelar

Calgary, Canada

Major Developments

Smart satphone needs more power

Technicians and engineers of Smart Communications, Inc. are working on ways to make their satellite-linked public calling offices more reliable especially during disasters.

Technical coordinator Mon Llavore told the Tribune recently that his group is studying ways to improve the capability of the Smart PCOs to continue operating even when power lines are down in times of typhoons.

Llavore said PCO franchisees brought to his attention the need to adapt the satellite phones to accept alternative power from a car battery or a standby generator in case of a typhoon when electricity is usually cut off by the First Catanduanes Electric Cooperative, Inc.

He revealed that the PCO unit actually consists of a handheld satellite phone connected to a normal landline handset through a so-called "cellulink." The unit, however, can operate only for four hours using the supplied standby battery.

The Smart man also disclosed that the handheld satellite phone, which looks like a regular cellphone except for the folding, stubby, five-inch antenna attached to its side, is good for 24 hours of combined standby and talk time.

One drawback of the unit manufactured by Ericsson, Llavore said, is that it cannot be used indoors or even inside a car. For the unit to receive or transmit signals to the satellite hovering above the earth, there has to be no cover or obstruction on the top of its antenna. Its need for a clear line-of-sight is such that putting a piece of paper on its antenna would render it useless, Llavore bared, that's why the PCO units have antennaes that extend to outside the roof of the PCOs.

He also added that the satphone, which NTC Commissioner Joseph Santiago earlier described as costing P45,000 each, is prohibitive as it is originally intended for industrial and corporate users.

Under the franchising scheme, the PCOs can accept incoming calls but the cost of satellite usage will be charged to the PCOs. Thus, whenever a cellular phone or a landline phone will contact a PCO, the charge on the cell or landline phone will be the regular P8 or P3 per minute, respectively, but the charge on the PCO will be P20 per minute, the same as an outgoing call.

However, the PCO franchisees have yet to receive the number of their phones from Smart as the company has yet to formulate guidelines on the incoming calls, which may offer fax messaging.

A PCO operator told the Tribune that she uses P20,000 worth of phone cards procured from Smart in Manila every week. She added that during the initial operation of the unit, they wasted two of the P1,000 cards in trying to figure out how to call other phones.