DITO clarifies: Services are not limited to initial list of compatible phone models

Telecommunications duopoly challenger DITO Telecommunity Corp. on Wednesday said that those who own handsets which are not included in the initial list of compatible phone models it released can still enjoy its network services.

During the virtual hearing of the Senate committee on public services, DITO chief technology officer Rodolfo Santiago explained that the initial list only means that “those models have undergone a collaborative test of their compatibility to our network.”

“We are assured that the brands that have undergone this testing are 100% compatible,” Santiago said.

Below is the initial list of handsets compatible with DITO:

LOOK: Initial list of phone models/handsets compatible with DITO. @gmanewsbreaking @gmanews pic.twitter.com/CH3tHuDVju

— Ted Cordero (@Ted_Cordero) March 10, 2021

“Those [models] not in the list does not necessarily mean that they are not compatible. It just means that models not in the list have not undergone a collaborative compatibility test with our networks,” Santiago said in a mix of English and Filipino.

However, the DITO official said the telco cannot guarantee that users of other phone models not on the initial list will not experience technical issues since these have not been tested yet for network compatibility.

“To protect the public, there may be technical issues that are unforeseen,” Santiago said.

Nonetheless, he said collaborative tests are still ongoing with other brands and phone manufacturers and DITO will expand its list of compatible models.

“The commercial reason is because we want to protect the consumers from wasting their money. We don’t want them to waste their money to buy our SIMs, services and they cannot fully utilize their phones because of compatibility. The partial list that we provided are the phones that we, as a company, have had extensive testing as well coordination with these handset manufacturers,” DITO chief administrative officer Adel Tamano said.

On Monday, the new major telco launched its commercial services in 15 key areas in the Visayas and Mindanao, saying that Metro Manila will have to wait a few more weeks to avail of its services. 

Tamano said that as of March 9, 2021 there are already 22,748 subscriber signups for the telco and it has already sold 7,586 SIM cards. —KG, GMA News