Next Mobile eyes Fil-Ams in US

Wireless service operator Next Mobile (NMI) is targeting certain areas in the United States with huge concentration of Filipino-American households for its product and services via the establishment of a US-based affiliate and entering into strategic relations with Sprint-Nextel, America’s third largest telecommunications company.

"While other local telcos have offered their low-priced competitive strategy in the domestic front, we have decided to enlarge our aspirations and bring this unlimited talk, text, and Internet to the US," NMI chairman and CEO Mel Velarde said.

NMI owns 50 percent of Verdict Mobile, a US company, that will be marketing not only the services of Sprint-Nextel mostly to Fil-Ams in the US, but also those of NMI.

"There are 350,000 Fil-Am households in Daly City, San Francisco; Honolulu, Hawaii; Long Beach in Los Angeles, and Jersey City which we are targeting immediately and which can be markets of Sprint-Nextel and at the same time, can pay for the NMI subscriptions of their relatives in the Philippines," Velarde said.

Velarde added that by next year, Verdict Mobile will be targeting the middle states. There are about 3.5 million Filipinos in the whole of the US.

Verdict Mobile has a strategic alliance with Nextel US which used to have an equity in Nextel Philippines.

For Filipinos who are in constant touch with their relatives in the US or Philippine-based companies that are in constant communication with other companies or businesses in the US, NMI yesterday unveiled a new offering called IMX U365 plus, which not only offers the features of the standard U365 which includes unlimited talk, text, and Internet in the Philippines for 365 days but also two new benefits.

The first new benefit is that while in the US, IMX 365 plus subscribers can engage in unlimited walkie-talkie at $1.50 per day with some 16 million Nextel US subscribers; unlimited wireless web at 20 cents per day; local US calls at 25 cents per minute peak and 15 cents per minute off peak; 99 cents a minute for calls to the Philippines; 10 cents per text to send and free to receive; and electronic reloading and the flexibility to upgrade to postpaid in the US and/or the Philippines.

Velarde revealed that very soon, NMI will be offering unlimited calls to the Philippines at very low fixed monthly rates.

For his part, NMI president and COO Lamberto Ramos noted that what differentiates their service from those offered by other telcos is that "ours will have no roaming charges while in the US."

For the second new benefit of IMX 365 plus, NMI vice-president for marketing Rose Pineda explained that those availing themselves of IMX U365 plus phone models (i215, i265, i285, and i730) can have free bonus minutes to call the US trough IMX prepaid plus cards. Thus, depending on the prepaid card denomination (P300, P500, P750, and P1,500) IMX U365 plus subscribers can have in addition to their allocated free local calls as much as 333 bonus minutes of calls to the US free.