More than 50% of the Red mobile subscriber base have already been assimilated by Smart – a good sign that PLDT will meet the July deadline set by the NTC for the decommissioning of Red and the subsequent return of its (CURE’s) spectrum. By last count, Red mobile has a total of 900K subscribers (though some reports state the count at 1.3M).

Napoleon L. Nazareno, PLDT President:

“A substantial number have been transferred… A little more than half of the CURE subscribers have been migrated (to Smart)… We will return (the frequency) by the end of July.”

PLDT has assured the NTC that the migration will not affect the service quality of Red subscribers.

Smart, for its part, has started conducting service checks and surveys among Red mobile subs just to make sure that things are going well.

According to Smart, the whole transition will include the following activities on its end:

• Capacity Build-up

• Provisioning (to accommodate the CURE subscribers)

• Service Parameters Definition

• Testing and Implementation

PLDT’s CURE, which controls the Red Mobile brand, will be sold through a public bidding to be over seen by the NTC – up for grabs will be 10 Mhz of 3G frequencies (which San Miguel is heavily gunning for).